The following article is a guest post from Laura of Green Panda Treehouse. It’s also the first article in the College Money Network’s “Back To School Shuffle” series, where we will be sharing articles on a variety of back to school topics and giving away an iPod Shuffle and other prizes.

After graduating college, many people plan on starting work in a career they love, handle their finance responsibly, and build a fulfilling life. I want to show you how you can get your finances together with transportation. I’d like for you to be a college graduate without a car payment tied around your neck.

Lower Transportation Costs Now as a College Student

First off, do not spend a lot of money if you’re buying car in college. I recommend getting a car that can get you to class, work, and home. If that car is $1,000 or less, than go for it. I had a reliable car that was $500 and lasted 3 1/2 years. You can get a nicer car later, but you’re a college student and your income will be be lower than normal. Once your income increases after graduation when you are working full time, you can slowly increase your spending.

If you live in a city with decent public transportation, take advantage of it. It’s a great chance to free up some cash for later and you’ll be helping the environment.

Build an Automated System

Open a savings account specifically for purchasing a car. I use ING Direct for my savings and one advantage is you can open a sub-savings account very easily.

Every paycheck you receive, automate at least 5-10% of it to go towards your car fund. Have it deducted from your checking account into your savings account. You should be getting some income while in college because you want to build your resume up with practical work experience. Find an FDIC bank or CUNA credit union that offers high interest rates for savings and watch it grow faster.

I worked as a beer-tender occasionally to earn some cash and tips. I helped out during concert seasons, so I was usually out of school for most of the nights and it put some money into my pocket.

Use your tuition refund. Some savvy college students will be getting some money in the form of tuition refund. This is a great chance for you to sock away money. After setting aside money for your emergency fund, put 20-30% of your refund into your car fund account. As long as you don’t have any credit card debt, have fun with the rest of the money.

What kind of financial aid is available?

• Federal Pell Grants
• Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grants
• State Grants

Fill out your FAFSA early. Besides getting qualified for federal grants, filing easrly can also open up oppurunties to get state grants. You’ll cut down on having to rely on student loans.

Hunt for more scholarships. FastWeb is a popular site that searches applicable scholarships for you.

By taking advantage of automatic transfers, you can painlessly build a car fund that you can use after your graduation instead of getting a car loan and being in debt.

Your Take
How have you saved money for your goals?

It’s hard to believe that summer is practically over, and school is back in session. Of course, I don’t really care anymore, since I finished grad school last year. However, I know plenty of you are still in school, and we, the members of the College Money Network, want to help you kick off the new school year with a giveaway.

Before I get to the prizes, I’d like to introduce the newest member of the College Money Network — Studenomics. Be sure to check out his blog for great articles, covering topics that are relevant to college students and recent grads. In fact, if you head over there today, you can even enter for chance to win two free laptops.

Now back to this giveaway … keep reading to find out what’s up for grabs and how you can win.

Prizes

• 4GB iPod shuffle
• Copy of The Total Money Makeover
• One-year magazine subscription to Kiplinger’s or Money Magazine
• $20 Starbucks gift certificate

How to Enter

Each of the participating College Money Network sites will provide you with six chances to win, which means you can earn up to 36 entries into the contest! To enter at Broke Grad Student, you can do the following:

• Leave a comment on this post. (1 entry)
• Follow me (@brokegrad) on Twitter. Leave a comment on this post or email me with your Twitter user name, so I can count your entry. (2 entries)
• Tweet about this contest. Here’s a shortened link to this page for your convenience: http://bit.ly/snULC (3 entries)

How To Win

All valid entries will be assigned a unique number. We will use a random number generator to select the winning numbers. Odds of winning depend on the number of entries received.

All entries must be received by September 6, 2009 at 11:59 PM PST.

Winners will be notified the following week. After all the prizes have been claimed, we will release an official announcement listing the winners.

Rules and Restrictions

• All winners must be 18 years of age or older and live in the United States.
• No purchase is necessary to participate in this giveaway.
• We will choose the winners from the qualified participants. We are the sole judges of adding entries to the list. Plagiarized content, trackback from splogs, spams, and comments containing abusive or inappropriate languages will not be considered.
• To award the prizes, we must be able to contact you. Please leave a valid email address with your comment, or make sure we can contact you through your web site. Your contact information will not be shared with anyone else.
• For certain prizes, winners will be required to submit a physical address to ship the prize. Again, your contact information will never be shared with anyone.
• Prizes are provided as-is, and substitutions may be made at our discretion.
• Winners must reply within 1 week from the time we notify them to claim their prize. Otherwise, they forfeit their prize, and it will be awarded to an alternate.

It’s the beginning of a new year which means it’s a great time to look back at the past year. Broke Grad Student has had its ups and downs in 2008 (e.g. getting hacked at the end of the year), but that’s just life in general. What I’ve really enjoyed over the past year is watching my readership grow, meeting new PF bloggers/readers, giving away free stuff, making enough money from this blog to cover my monthly student loan payments, and most importantly, having fun while doing it.

Of course, none of the things I just described would have been possible without you. They say that you get what you give, so I hope to give more quality posts in 2009 and get more quality readers, like you. In fact, this entire post is dedicated to you, because these are the most popular posts of 2008 based on what you enjoyed reading the most.

1. 50+ Tips, Ideas, Resources on Saving Money for College Students

What does it mean when the most popular post on your blog only contains one paragraph of your own writing? That’s one awesome paragraph, of course. Alright, maybe not. Perhaps the credit should go to the 50+ great resources I gathered and linked to in the list, because this post received 4 times as many pageviews as the next most popular post of 2008.

50+ Tips, Ideas, Resources on Saving Money for College Students

2. 6 Reasons Why I Hate Cash

Without a doubt, this was my most controversial article of 2008, sparking hundreds of comments after it was featured on MSN Smart Spending and MSN Money. With tens of thousands of readers visiting my blog that day, some of the debate spilled over to this site, so head on over to see what all the fuss was about.

6 Reasons Why I Hate Cash

3. Girl Selling Her Virginity To Pay For College

This article wins the award for “liveliest discussion” and “most expletives”. The only reason it doesn’t count as the “most controversial” is because it’s about someone else selling their virginity to pay for college, not me.

Girl Selling Her Virginity To Pay For College

4. The CashCrate Scam

CashCrate is definitely not a scam, but apparently, a lot of people think it is because they end up here, reading my article about how it’s not a scam. If used properly, CashCrate can be a good source of a little additional income. I’ve made close to $500 through CashCrate since joining a little over a year ago.

The CashCrate Scam

5. 9 Weird and Unusual College Scholarships

This was one of my favorite articles to research. Although I wasn’t weird/unusual/special enough to get any of these scholarships when I was in college, it was fun trying to find the weirdest, strangest scholarships to include in the list. If you’re an aspiring candy technologist, be sure to check it out.

9 Weird and Unusual College Scholarships

6. 25 Tips, Ideas, Resources for Paying Back Student Loans

This compilation of links to various resources on paying back student loans took many hours to put together, but it was worth it in the end. It made me realize how many different approaches people take in tackling their student loan debt, and while everyone’s situation is unique, I’d be surprised if you can’t find at least one article that you can relate to in this list.

25 Tips, Ideas, Resources for Paying Back Student Loans

7. Halloween Costume Ideas for College Students

This post is definitely seasonal. Only 10 more months, and it’ll be relevant again. By the way, if any of you saw someone walking around campus with a paper bag over their head last Halloween, I’ll take credit for it.

Halloween Costume Ideas for College Students

8. Make Money with CashCrate and Pass It On

To be quite honest, I’m not surprised to see that my readers are interested in making money. In fact, I’d be a little worried if you weren’t interested in money, because you would have no reason to read this blog. Unless, of course, you’re an anonymous blogger stalker.

Make Money with CashCrate and Pass It On

The College Money Network is helping you celebrate the holiday season with a giveaway! As the economy continues to struggle, many of us are cutting back on our holiday spending this year, but we still want to have just as much fun. Share your frugal holiday ideas (frugal holiday gifts, frugal holiday party plans, etc.) and earn opportunties to win an iPod Shuffle, Amazon.com gift certificate, and more just in time for the holidays.

Prizes

• 2 GB iPod Shuffle
• $50 Photofiddle.com Gift Certificate
• $25 Amazon.com Gift Certificate
• One-year magazine subscriptions
  • Kiplinger’s
  • Money Magazine
• A copy of The Millionaire Next Door

How to Enter

There are multiple ways to earn entries into the CMN Frugal Holiday Giveaway. Complete as many as you can to increase your chances of winning a prize! You may enter each way once.

• Leave a comment on this post sharing your frugal holiday ideas. (1 entry)
• Subscribe to my feed via RSS [?] or email. Then send me the secret phrase that appears at the end of each post in my feed. (2 entries)
• Write a post on your own blog about your frugal holiday ideas and link back to this post. Email me to let me know. (3 entries)
• Visit individual College Money Network member sites for opportunities to earn additional entries, e.g. subscribing to individual RSS feeds. Copying and pasting your comment on multiple blogs will NOT count. (Maximum of 6 extra entries)
• College Finance 101
• MFA or Bust
• Poorer Than You
• Spilling Buckets
• This Writer’s Wallet

How To Win

All valid entries will be assigned a unique number. We will use a random number generator to select the winning numbers. Odds of winning depend on the number of entries received.

All entries must be received by December 15, 2008 at 11:59 PM PST.

Winners will be notified the following day. After all the prizes have been claimed, we will release an official announcement listing the winners.

Rules and Restrictions

• All winners must be 18 years of age or older and live in the United States.
• No purchase is necessary to participate in this giveaway.
• We will choose the winners from the qualified participants. We are the sole judges of adding entries to the list. Plagiarized content, trackback from splogs, spam, and comments containing abusive or inappropriate languages will not be considered.
• To award the prizes, we must be able to contact you. Please leave a valid email address with your comment, or make sure we can contact you through your web site. Your contact information will not be shared with anyone else.
• For certain prizes, winners will be required to submit a physical address to ship the prize. Again, your contact information will never be shared with anyone.
• Prizes are provided as-is, and substitutions may be made at our discretion.
• Winners must reply within 1 week from the time we notify them to claim their prize. Otherwise, they forfeit their prize, and it will be awarded to an alternate.

I’m not sure about where you live, but where I am it’s finally starting to feel like fall. The leaves are falling, the days are growing shorter, and restaurants are starting to serve their seasonal pumpkin-themed specials. While I’m a huge fan of pumpkin pie, I’m not a huge fan of it being dark outside by the time I leave work.

I seem to have caught a case of writer’s block from the changing seasons, but I’m starting to feel better. Things should start picking up again soon around here. In the meantime, here are a few of my favorite articles from the past week.

• 5 Things to Do to Build Wealth in Your 20s at Green Panda Treehouse
• My Thoughts on Credit or, this economy at This Writer’s Wallet
• Living at Home – Does It Save Money? at Poorer Than You
• What’s in the $700 Billion bailout plan – The Emergency Economic Stabilization Bill of 2008 at Spilling Buckets
• Going out without going broke at MFA or Bust
• Tipping: Psychological Warfare? at Student Scrooge
• McCain & Obama Propose IRA & 401(k) Rule Changes at Blueprint for Financial Prosperity