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For tips and information on dressing in the workplace and interviewing, click here.

For Buying a Car: Part 1 and information on financing and down payments, click here.
It is very important to know how to handle buying from a dealer even if you do not buy your car from one. Here is what you need to know before shopping.

1) Initial Price - You know that price written on the windshield? I can almost guarantee you won’t pay that price. If the salesman is open to negotiation, you’re either going to be able to get a discount from that price (it’s called the sticker price). Still, you could pay more over time because of financing and add-on fees.

2 Add-ons - When you shop at a dealer and come to an agreement, a few extra purchase options will be presented usually after your price is negotiated. These options may include things like extended warranty and there will be more options if you’re buying a new car rather than a used one. You may want to consider these add-ons, but remember that they all cost more money. The value that they add to the car can be less than what you pay. For example, an extended warranty that covers more items and problems on the car may be convenient and helpful, but ask yourself what it would normally cost to fix the car. Often, unless several different car problems arise at once, it is cheaper to pay maintenance costs when the problems occur.

3) Be Bold - This may surprise you, but when you go car shopping, you don’t have to buy a car. You can walk away. I can’t stress this enough. If you feel like you’re paying to much or cannot find a car that suits your needs, you don’t need to necessarily buy a car.

4) Shop around - Check other places. Look online, search the classifieds, but know that your visit to a dealership does not mean you must walk out of there with a car.

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Here’s the run down:

Banks make money off of overdraft fees, but a lot of people don’t realize how much they make. First, they’ll sometimes post transactions in a way to force you to pay fees. They’ll post the bigger payments first (like rent) and then post the smaller ones next. That means if you have $500 in your checking account and four transactions pending, the smaller ones will create more fees for them.

For example, if you paid rent of $500 and then had three transactions of $15, $10, and $5 they will post the $500 to your account first. That sucks up your balance. The next three transactions all carry an overdraft fee. If they post the smaller ones first, all three small ones go through and only the rent gets an overdraft fee.

Pretty slick, eh? They do this because they know they’re going to outsmart you. Not anymore.

Here lies the importance of balancing a checkbook. If you are charged a $30 fee for overdrafting, you could easily end up with a few hundred dollars of fees on small transactions. Eliminating one incident can save you a lot of money (you’ll flip when the $1.50 fee for taking out of a competitors banks ATM costs you more money in fees then you ended up with). The first trick is to know when everything will post. This is called float-time. Take a calendar and write when all the fixed payments come out (rent, cell phone, etc). Then you’ll know exactly how much to have and when you need to have it by. Checking your account online a few days a month can make it easy to track this.

Then you have all your other expenses like going out, utilities, food and textbooks that aren’t the same from month to month. This is where your budget meets your check book. The best way to handle these is with cash. Say for example you want to spend $400 on each one of those bills. The trick is to take $100 out of an ATM every monday. This way, you’ll know exactly when the money is coming out for those bills, even if they aren’t the same every month. It will also help you budget.

If you take the money out on Monday and have no cash by Saturday, then sorry. No going out. But, if you get to the next Monday and still have $25 left over, good for you! Keep taking the $100 out every Monday and don’t stop. If you have extra then put it in a savings account if you’re not going to spend it. Note: If you take out of the ATM every Friday you’re more likely to blow it over the weekend, whereas with a Monday you’ll probably spend it more wisely knowing you’re going to want to go out.

For The Pyschology of Spending, click here.

Now you have all your expenses tracked perfectly. No need to worry about balancing your check book. You just have to know that rent is due on the 30th, cell phone on the 15th, and how much your checking account needs to have each month. It eliminates the annoyance of going through and doing math with your checking account and your receipts. Once you do this for a few months it will become a habit and you’ll never run into the hassle of an overdraft again!

For more Banking Articles, click here.

So you want to buy stocks? Great! Be prepared to lose 50% of your investment in no time. 50% of the money you put in stocks… gone just like that.

Why? Because it can happen and you have to be prepared for it in case it does.

The 50% loss number comes from the legendary investor Warren Buffet. The idea is that if potential investors (such as you) aren’t psychology prepared to watch your investment drop 50% than you shouldn’t invest in the market.
I am not going to argue with this logic. Investing is a smart, long-term strategy offering the potential to make you a good amount of money. But it comes with risks and you should know that even the best investors or most seasoned money managers lose money every now and then in the stock market.
So if you don’t want to be burned, get out of the kitchen. All it means is that you can’t cook, or in this case, invest.

Now for those of you brave enough to take that initial plunge into the market remember a couple simple thoughts:

1) Be mentally prepared to stay invested even if you lose money.
2) Always do your homework and know what you’re investing in
3) Dividends are you friend

For more on investing, click here.

For The Psychology of Spending, click here.

Click here for healthy foods to help your brain while you study.

Don’t Cram!
Seriously, I mean it. A procrastinator myself, I have a tendency to study at the last minute, but that never makes up for a generous amount of time used to carefully go over everything your class covered in a semester. Two nights of intense studying will only stress you out needlessly. Perhaps this is past due, but prepare accordingly. Give yourself a day to study, not an hour.
NOTE: While you shouldn’t try cramming the nights before, it is a good idea to give your notes or textbooks a glance over to make sure you keep everything fresh in your head.

Take your time
Comprehensive exams cover most of what you learned during the past three months of class. Cramming doesn’t work. Slowly study your course material for about a week- two weeks before the exam. Break it up into a couple classes’ worth of material each day, going over the information. This method of re-learning should help you become adjusted to the amount of information and let your mind put it into long-term memory rather than taxing your short-term memory.

Know Your Weaknesses
Check your old tests or homework from the course for weaknesses in your knowledge of the material. See what you need to brush up on most and take your time examining those sections. Things you already know will tend to bore you, so spend the majority of your time on things you need.

Get Your Rest
Rest is the most important part of finals. If you pull all-nighters or party too soon, you face the risk of the not being at the top of your game for the exam. Be sure to get 7-10 hours of sleep to ensure you’re properly rested.

How do you prepare for finals? Share it with us in our comment box below.

More College Life articles.

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ING Direct
Rate: 2.75%
Fees: $0
Minimum: $0
The grand-daddy of online banking, ING Direct basically wrote the book of having an online-exclusive bank. Generally considered the biggest game in town, they have grown considerably over the years, but still has customer service as a highlight of the bank. Also, if you’re interested in investing, one can link their ShareBuilder, ING’s online broker, with their ING Direct account to fund their investing. Creating the links is quick and simple and are ready to go within a day. As a customer of both ShareBuilder and ING Direct, I highly recommend it to anyone without the amount required to open an account with Ben Franklin, or one wishing to start investing rather than hide money in a Savings Account.

With only a rate of 2.75%, it’s easy to question on why would I choose ING over E*Trade? It’s rather simple: Bonuses! Through ShareBuilder, I received a $30 bonus for opening an account through my college. But I also received a bonus with ING Direct as well: when a referral code is used, if you open a ING Direct Savings Account with an initial deposit of $250 or more, you get $25 instantly. I put in the minimum, giving myself an additional $25 for saving money right away, making it the best financially sound account to open.

Before the Tuition Bill Arrives
In preparation for settling your bill we recommend doing four things:

1. Make sure you’ve completed the FAFSA form for access to the federal Stafford loan

2. Re-familiarize yourself with the financial aid “package” that your school has awarded you

3. Research and apply for additional outside scholarship options

4. Estimate the budget you will need for “extras” such as: phone, travel, etc.

After the Tuition Bill Arrives
Don’t procrastinate. Open it right away, and plan on dedicating time within the first week of its arrival to get your financing in place. We recommend:

5. Running the numbers one more time to make sure you are not borrowing one penny more than necessary. Be hard on yourself!

6. Borrowing the maximum through the federal Stafford loan program before tapping private loans

7. Applying for private loans in the same session (online or phone) with your co-signer

No matter what you do, remember to shop around. Talk to your financial aid office, do your research, and use the right resources.

Courtesy of Simple Tuition

Start by saving approximately $2.37/day through June 30th. If you average putting away this much money each day for the first 6 months, you’ll be very close to $500. Now there are four things you can do with $500 bucks. Spend it, save it, invest it, or donate it. If you decide to save/invest, you have several options:

For the low-risk savers

Take it to the bank and put it in a certificate of deposit. The economy may get worse before it gets better, and interest rates may continue to rise due to liquidity constraints (though the Fed cut interbanking interest rates not too long ago, both help banks get new greenbacks). If you put $500 in a bank account @ 3% for 6 months, you’ll earn $7.50 for doing absolutely nothing. With interest rates so high, many online banks have higher interest rates than your local banks in simple money market and savings accounts. Don’t forget to look into these.

For Three Benefits of Investing In Certificates of Deposit, click here.

For FAQs About CDs:Answered, click here.

So You Saved Some Money… Now What?, click here.

For the moderate risk-takers

Invest in a mutual fund. Mutual funds are a great way to diversify your investment, so long as you don’t give all your money to one broker (Madoff). The best part about mutual funds is if a company within the fund tanks, you don’t take nearly as big of a hit compared to if you just owned that company.

For Mutual Funds 101, click here.

For the risk-takers (within reason)

Invest in the stock market. Risk definitely varies depending on what kind of stocks you invest in and how much time you put into investing in specific companies. Just think, Warren Buffet doesn’t have any uncertainty when investing in a stock. The greater the knowledge of the company and certainty with which you invest, the less risky an investment is. Plus, stocks pay nice dividends, too. Another good way to invest your money in the stock market or mutual funds is through a retirement account, like an IRA or a 401(k).

For How To Read Stock Tables: Definitions & Terminology, click here.

For a One Minute Guide To Reading A Balance Sheet: Invest, click here.

For Five Reasons To Invest In Dividend Paying Stocks, click here.

For Roth v. Traditional IRA v. 401(k), click here.

For the Risk Lovers

One word for you: Forex. Forex stands for foreign exchange (of currencies) and can be extremely lucrative. But remember, the more money you have the opportunity to make, the more money you can lose. Currency trading is extremely risky, but there is a science to it. If you can put away $250-$500 bucks and you’re willing to put it on the line, currency trading is for you. With loss limits, you can avoid losing all your money, and honestly, you’re bound to make some money. Currency trading is beyond the scope of this article, but a great place to learn is Baby Pips, as well as understanding the fundamentals.

College Life

Collegenomics

Feb 1st, 2009 - Collegefitness101.com