Green Panda Treehouse

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Since FAFSA applications will be sent out and available starting this week, I decided to repost (and modify) a previous post on financial aid. The information is still good and very helpful.

My goal with this post is to try and get you the information you need to find  money for college. While many students finance their education with mainly student loans, there are grants and scholarships out there. The main key is start early. While there are opportunities throughout the year, focusing on applying in January and February can really pay off. How? See the tips below to find out.

Remember you’re looking for grants, which mean you don’t have to pay them back.

Apply for FAFSA early. As soon as you can, apply for Free Application for Federal Student Aid in January. Use an estimate for your taxes when you initially fill it out. Once you get your tax return back, (or your parents’) sign in online and update the information. The earlier you do this the higher your chances of receiving more grants.

Be aware of individual states’ deadlines for getting financial aid. Each state has a different deadline on getting grants from them. March is a deadline that many states shoot for, so try to do it early and you’ll see that you can get more grants there. We’re talking about an extra hundred a semester to thousands of dollars.

Apply for scholarships. Just because you’re getting money from the government doesn’t mean you can’t try to get some scholarships. FastWeb is a popular site that searches applicable scholarships for you. You should also check out the institution’s scholarships, which are usually based on need, merit, and/or major.

Stay local. By staying in-state, you get much cheaper rates than out of state students. My university doubles the rate for a class for out of state students.

Go to a community college first. In my area, the community college is close to the local universities. Many of the university professors teach at community college. You also save 40-60% on the price per credit!

Maintain good grades. Most federal financial aid require a 2.0 GPA or higher to keep it. Don’t use that as a guideline; strive for a 3.0 or higher. It will help when you go to a 4 year university and are looking at their scholarships.

Consider work study as an option. This helps put cash on your pocket and the schedule is typically good for a college student. If you have dependents and going to college, this may not be an option, as the pay is usually $6-8/hour.  I would suggest looking at jobs from the career center.

There are several articles great articles from other blogs that can help college students. Here’s a list of my favorites:

• 10 Tips For Realistic Money Management In College (The Simple Dollar)
• Ben Stein’s Tips For New College Students (Consumerism Commentary)
• How I Escaped from Living Paycheck-to-Paycheck (Get Rich Slowly)
• Quelling the Arguments Against Student Loan Interest Rate Reduction(Grad Money Matters)

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Photo Credit: yanec

I can’t believe the year went by so quickly. It was overall a good year. We celebrated our 1 year anniversary this month and I like to thank my husband for a wonderful first year. I graduated about 2 weeks ago. I decided I should review how I did in 2007 financially and then give my goals for the upcoming year.

2007 Financial Goals

• Income: I would like to earn $20,000 for the year. This would be from my internship job and the remaining from any side jobs. Verdict: Yeah about this…..I came really, really close (approx. 19k), but not close enough.
• Spending: I’m trying to lower my expenses on eating out. I want to get it down to $40 a month. I would also like to cut down my magazine habit and subscribe to two magazines to save money. I can usually spend $50 a month by paying the newsstand price. I want to go from $600 a year to $30. Verdict: I actually did well with this goal. I still buy magazines on occasion, but I subscribe to one and read online from the others. I do eat less, but not as drastically as I hoped.
• Investing in Roth IRA: I would like to contribute $500 into a Roth IRA, but only after I’ve taken care of my medical bills first. ($257) Verdict: Failed. I do have an IRA, but it’s not fully funded. My bill is for approximately $100 now since paying some of it.
• Saving: I would like to have $1,000 in my emergency fund just to build some momentum. Verdict: Still a work in progress.
• Debt: I would like to pay off all my small high interest bills by December 31. Verdict: I paid my credit card debt off and I feel good.

2008 Financial Goals

• Income: I would like to earn $37,000 for the year. This would be from my ‘regular’ job and the remaining from any side jobs. (Since I didn’t make my goal last year I’m being conservative.)
• Spending: I’m going to continue cutting back on eating out to twice a week, including weekends.
• Investing: I’m going to enroll in my company’s 401(k) and meet the employer match . I’ll also continue to contribute to my Roth IRA.
• Saving: I will have $2,000 in my emergency fund by September 1, 2008. I would also like to put our income tax return into our house fund.
• Debt: I would like to pay off my car loan by July 31, 2008. I would like to have my car loan out before I have to start paying student loans.

Well, that’s what I came up with and please continue coming back to see if I reach these goals on time. I finished my first guest post, please look at how to maximize a minimum wage job. Paid Twice is a great site and there are wonderful guest posts this week. Have a wonderful weekend!

I learned my first lessons about money from my parents. One thing that I notice when looking back is that we grew up living paycheck to paycheck. They both had good jobs and they could be creative when it came to ways to save money, yet if something happened, it put the family into a tailspin. I thought that was just the way is was with everyone else. My mom took us school shopping twice a year for clothes and supplies. We had food and my father had the latest computer and internet service. I felt that we were fine until some screw u[ with HR or a client and then we had to scrimp and save until that got resolve and we got right back with spending.

While I now understand that it is common to handle your money in such a way, it’s not the best way. I learned through trial and error and when I was fed up I didn’t have more money in my account I decided to read up on finances. Most of he books seemed boring or didn’t feel appropriate for me as a college student. The first book that I enjoyed and read through was ‘Debt Free by 30′. It was written by 2 twenty year olds who advocated tracking all your spending and work on lowering your debt bit by bit. It had low cost recipes and lots of websites for me to look over. I also decided to talk to some friends and see what they thought.

I’m still learning and I enjoy reading up the blogs on my blogroll. I don’t try to change everything at once, but keep adding up little changes, so I’m likely to stick with them. There are different ways t learn and here’s some of them.

1. Parents: This would be a great scenario if you learn good financial habits from them. Good examples from supportive parents can help cultivate the skills and desire to be financially independent. Unfortunately some parents don’t have the financial know-how t o pass on.
2. Friends: You have to be careful this as you can learn bad habits from people just as inexperienced as you. Don’t just look at what your friends have. Some of the worst off financially have the latest gadgets and biggest houses.
3. Books/Web: A common way people learn about personal finance is learning from a book or reading personal finance sites.
4. Classroom: Some colleges have a personal finance class offered on campus. Many times this is more of an elective choice than a core class, which is a shame considering they offer that orientation class on how to study which is mandatory.
5. Life: A common teacher for many. Basically you learn as you go along. The problem with this is that you can learn so many bad habits and keep repeating them because you don’t know any better way.

How did you learn about personal finance? I’m curious to see how many people learned good financial habits from their parents and/or friends. I also want to see if a financial crisis was the motivator to get it together. If you have any other personal finance sites I should look at, please share.

Some great posts that might interest you:

• Being Frugal: Your children are watching. What are you teaching?
• Dough Roller: How to make good financial decisions
• Gather Little By Little: 10 things we did to gain financial control
• Plonkee Money: Advice to Freshers

Photo Credit: Ahmed Rabea