How far would you be willing to go to pay off your student loans?

A 22-year-old Sacramento State grad seeks to pay off her student loans by auctioning off her virginity at the infamous Moonlight Bunny Ranch in Nevada.

Using the pseudonym Natalie Dylan, the 22-year-old virgin is ready to sell her virginity to eliminate her student debt and to finance grad school.

“I think empowerment of women is picking yourself up and doing something on your own to better yourself,” says Dylan.

Natalie Dylan’s stepfather allegedly applied for student loans in her name and then ran off with the money, leaving her with the debt. After earning her bachelor’s degree in women’s studies at Sacramento State, she plans to get her master’s degree in family and marriage counseling beginning in January, but she needs a way to pay for it.

From a purely financial point of view, I must admit — this plan is brilliant. From a moral point of view, it’s debatable, but don’t be too quick to judge her. Natalie says her virginity won’t simply go to the highest bidder. “I’m looking for intelligence and an overall nice person,” says Dylan.

“When I was younger, I wanted 100% romance, possibly even wait for marriage. But as I grew up, reality kinda hit. And I think its a capitalistic society, and I want to capitalize on this,” explains Dylan.

With bidding up to $250,000 already, it looks like she may be well on her way to capitalizing on her 22-year-old virginity. I think it’s time to update my list of 25 tips and ideas for paying back student loans and unusual ways to get money for college.

For more details on the story and to watch a video interview with Natalie Dylan, check out: Sac State Grad Selling Her Virginity For Tuition

In case you’ve been in a box the past decade or so, the Internet is a pretty happening place to be nowadays. I definitely dig it. Of course, as things get more popular, they tend to start filling up with junk. As more junk accumulates, it becomes harder to find what you’re looking for.

Fortunately, companies like Google have built great tools to help people, like me and you, find stuff. We find what we’re looking for, and Google slowly takes over the world — a fair trade in my opinion. So when Google finally does take over the world, you’ll definitely want to know how to use their search engine.

Here are six cool things that Google can do to help you quickly find what you’re looking for. How does this relate to finance? Well, we all know that time equals money.

1. Calculator

If you ever need to do some quick math or you’ve been dying to know the answer to that equation from physics class that doesn’t even fit on one line in your notebook, then just Google it. From simple addition and subtraction to sines and cosines, Google can handle it all. You can even type in phrases like “5th root of 32″ and “20% of 150″.

2. Currency Converter

Traveling abroad or have leftover money after traveling abroad? Use Google to find out how much your money is worth. Simply type in a dollar amount and the two types of currency, and let Google work its magic.

Currency isn’t the only thing Google can convert. Try typing in “1 ft to m” or “1 cup to teaspoons”. Google can pretty much convert anything you throw at it.

3. Dictionary

Enough with the numbers, this tip is for people who like words. If you think Google is good with numbers, wait till you see what it can do with words. Just type “define:” before a word, and Google will do just that. It’ll grab and display a list of dictionary definitions for the word.

4. Search a Specific Website

Have you ever gotten frustrated because you couldn’t find what you were looking for a on a site? To make matters worse, the site’s search function doesn’t work, or it simply doesn’t exist. Have no fear! Google to the rescue! Type “site:” followed by a website, and Google will only search within that site.

The example above searches this site for “student loans”. Note that “site:brokegradstudent.com” can appear anywhere in the query. If you search for “student loans site:brokegradstudent.com”, you will get the same results.

5. Search for a Specific File Type

We all know that the Internet is littered with all kinds of files, but sometimes you just want to find a particular type. For example, maybe you’re looking for the prospectus of a Vanguard fund in PDF format. By adding “filetype:pdf” to your search, Google will only search for PDF files.

6. Remove Unwanted Results

It’s always annoying when you’re searching for something, but irrelevant results keep showing up instead. There’s a way around it though. Let’s say you just finished reading Harry Potter, and you want to look up reviews on the book. However, searching for “harry potter review” returns a bunch of reviews of the movie instead of the book. By adding “-movie” to the search, Google will remove pages related to the movie from the search results, and you get what you were looking for.

This is just scratching the surface of the awesome power of Google. You can mix and match these tips to make your searches even more powerful, like searching for a specific file type on a specific website. Happy googling!

While checking my blog stats the other day, I noticed that some of my readers are still using Internet Explorer. That makes me sad. Did you know that every time someone uses Internet Explorer an angel loses its wings?

OK, just kidding. But seriously, you should consider switching to Firefox, and here’s why:

It’s free.
Absolutely, positively free. You only have to spend the time to download and install it. Firefox is developed by the Mozilla foundation, a non-profit foundation that was established to create innovative open-source software. Mozilla is completely funded by donations, so if you like it (which I bet you will), you can even contribute to the foundation if you choose.

It runs on all platforms.
Windows? Check. Macs? Check. Linux? Check.

It’s has a small footprint.
Unlike other browsers, Firefox isn’t bloated with unnecessary features. It takes up a small amount of disk space, so it’s quick and easy to install.

It’s expandable.
Another great feature of Firefox is that you can add almost any functionality via add-ons. There’s a very active community of Firefox developers that create awesome extensions that plug right into your browser. You can see your current weather forecast, control your media player, and block annoying ads to name a few. With help of Firefox’s extensions manager, it’s easy to install, enable, disable, and remove add-ons with a few clicks.

It’s easy to cover your tracks.
With the click of one button, you can can clear everything you want in order to cover your tracks — cookies, cache, download history, history. You can even tell it to do this every time you close your browser.

R-E-S-P-E-C-T
In the past, Firefox has received numerous honors, including PC World’s Product of the Year, Softpedia’s User’s Choice, Forbes’ Best of the Web, CNET Editor’s Choice, and many more. If so many other people are using, why aren’t you?

It has tabs.
If you’re still using an older version of IE, you know how annoying it feels to have a million windows open at once. Well, Firefox’s tabbed interface lets you collapse all of those windows into a single screen and quickly switch between the different sites you have open. If one site is still loading, you can tab over to another site in the meantime. It’ll make your browsing experience more organized and efficient.

If all of this sounds good to you, then what are you waiting for? Get Firefox now by clicking on the link below:

This post is for people who scratch their heads when they see this icon:

By the time you finish reading this, you’ll only be scratching your head if it itches.

What is RSS?

That orange icon that made you scratch your head is the standard icon for an RSS feed. RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication, and it’s a family of Web formats used to publish frequently updated content such as blog entries, news stories, or podcasts. An RSS document, usually called a “feed,” “web feed,” or “channel,” contains a summary of content from a web site or the full text. RSS makes it possible for people to get the latest content from their favorite web sites automatically, instead of having to check each site manually.

RSS content can be read using software called an “RSS reader,” “feed reader” or an “aggregator.” The user subscribes to a feed by entering the feed’s link into the reader or by clicking an RSS icon in a browser that initiates the subscription process. The reader checks the user’s subscribed feeds regularly for new content, downloading any updates that it finds.

Why should I use it?

Subscribing to RSS feeds is like creating your own custom newspaper or magazine. You have total control over the sources of your content, and it’s conveniently gathered in one place. Instead of having to visit each individual site, you just have to open your reader, and everything is right there in front of you. Have you been itching to read Fox News and The Onion side by side? Well, now you can do it.

How do I set it up?

Modern browsers have support for subscribing to RSS feeds, so all you have to do is click on the link to a site’s feed. On most sites, it’s marked with the icon that formerly caused you to scratch your head. I’ll walk you through subscribing to the feed for this site.

1. Go to my feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/BrokeGradStudent
2. You’ll see a list of options to subscribe. Choose your weapon of choice. I use Google Reader, so I’m going to assume you click on the Add to Google button.

3. That will bring you to the following page. Click on Add to Google Reader.

4. If you already have a Google Reader account, you’re finished.
5. If you don’t have an account, click on the Create an Account Now link.

Now you get the latest content from this site without even having to come here. Be sure to drop by and leave comments though!

For those of you who still don’t trust RSS, you can also subscribe via ol’ fashioned email.