Managing Your Money
If you're a student, you may just be broke -- or at least, not rolling in money. That's to be expected, since you have no education and no career. But even with the tiny trickle of cash you've got coming in from that part-time job, you could probably make it stretch a little further if you just knew how, right?

Stretching that dollar is easier than you think, and we can tell you how. That's right, we're going to talk about money, even though everyone's parents always say it's rude to talk about money. Well, we didn't have any parents. We're orphans, and in the orphanage, no one tells you not to talk about money. That's because none of us had any.


MANAGING YOUR MONEY

Student Loans

The federal government released a study last month that said without student loans, there would be about 22 people in the U.S. with a college degree. The rest of us would be working as shoeshine boys and housemaids for those 22 people. Think about it -- if there only 22 people with college degrees, they'd probably be extremely rich and have a vast empire requiring tens of thousands of shoeshine boys and housemaids.

Luckily, student loans are real and get the rest of us through college, with a glimmer of hope that we may have our own shoeshine boys and housemaids at some point. But if you screw up and don't pay your student loans or take out too much money, guess what you'll end up doing in life? You got it -- you're going to be my shoeshine boy. Or housemaid. Or shoeshine maid or houseman (I am an equal opportunity employer).

Credit Cards

Everyone knows the down side of credit cards. The interest rates are usurious (look it up, brainy) and it takes you four years to pay off clothes you stopped wearing two years ago. They prey on college students. They aren't accepted on offshore gambling sites. All that you already know.

Then again, they come in extremely handy when you need cash in an emergency. Or when you're locked out of your apartment. Or when you're locked out of the apartment you're trying to burglarize. Read up on how to use credit cards wisely, and which are the best for students to carry.

Car Loans

If you walk to school and walk to work and walk to parties and walk to the barn-raising party and walk to the farm to churn your own butter, then this section is not for you. For those of you who drive, read on.

If you walk into a car dealership and let THEM finance you -- well, that's bad money management, my friend. The dealer will almost always gouge you (ever wonder why they ask how much you can afford to pay every month, and that's always EXACTLY what you end up paying?). Instead, you can apply online for a loan, get a decision in an hour, and get a check in about 3 days. Then, go pick up your car and tell the obnoxious "finance manager" to get lost.

Watch Your Credit

In case you were born without sensory organs and don't already know this, the major U.S. credit bureaus track pretty much every bill you don't pay on time and then hold it against you later when you're trying to get a decent loan on a car or a house. It's a good idea to know in advance how badly they're going to stick it to you.

Keeping an eye on your credit is the best way to stay on top of this situation and keep your credit in good standing. It's also the best way to figure out if an illegal alien has forged your SSN, stolen your identity, opened seven credit cards in your name and charged $22,000 worth of home electronics to furnish his apartment. That'd be expensive for you in the long run. Monitoring your credit, on the other hand, is free.

Identity Theft

We just mentioned this above, but crooks love stealing the identities of college students. You're away from home and using credit cards to buy things already, and it doesn't arouse suspicion very quickly because you often don't pay much attention to your credit card statements.

Time to pull your head out, my friend. If this happens to you, it can take years to fix -- it's not something that gets cleared up with a phone call or two. And for once, the credit card companies are on your side -- many offer monitoring services that make sure none of this extremely inconvenient crap happens to you. It's worth a look.

"Manage Your Money" Articles

Managing your money is the second most popular topic of magazine articles in the 21st century, narrowly edged by Brangelina. What's the difference? You actually read the Brangelina articles.

But that's bad news, because Brangelina is already rich. Reading about Brangelina makes her/him/it richer. Reading the money articles can make YOU richer. So read these money articles and hold up a picture of Brangelina while you're reading them if it makes you feel better.