Money Girl makes sense out of dollars

The world of finance is filled with confusing terms, complex acronyms and abbreviations galore. How are you supposed to find out what these terms mean, let alone what they have to do with your money? And if you don’t have a financial planner who will help you find the best ways to invest your cash?

Money Girl on Quick & Dirty Tips is a great resource for those of us who have money we would rather invest in the market than in a stockbroker. The podcast is informative and usually under ten minutes, the perfect length to listen to online. If you have more questions, e-mail Money Girl and she might answer your questions her next podcast.

This podcast does a nice job of walking listeners through complicated financial procedures without patronizing. The show has tips on taxes, IRAs, emergency funds and diversifying into other currencies. The host, Elizabeth Carlassare, gives clear and precise answers to questions – she gives dates and monetary amounts, so you won’t have to read so much fine print.

Are you paying too much for your apartment?

Renting your own apartment for the first time is a big step and one with potential pitfalls. Not only do you have to find someplace that is convenient, you need to make sure that it is clean, the neighbors are nice and you are not being taken for a fool in terms of price.Looking for a place to live anywhere around the University District can be daunting, but if you start your search in May you have a much better chance of finding something when graduating seniors leave. The summer months are also typically when families move, so if you have a choice look then.Finding out how much you apartment is worth is important – you don’t want to be paying through the nose when the building down the street has rents that are hundreds of dollars cheaper, but how do you find out what your potential new neighbors are paying? Check out www.rentometer.com where you enter your address and find out if you are paying close to the median price in your area or if you should look down the block.If the apartment smells like mildew or has any sort of mold, run. It doesn’t matter how great the place is otherwise – those things will make you sick and give the whole place a musty smell.Make sure to fill out that form they give you assessing the place and put down all the damages you see. A chip in the door frame may not seem like a big deal until you move out and they want you to replace the entire thing. Don’t lose your damage deposit because you failed to take those fifteen minutes to check for previous damages. You’ll need that money for your next place – or for a new couch.

Endorsement Deals: How much are you worth?

Last night word of mouth advertising got a new twist when Facebook introduced “social ads.” Instead of news feeds about the latest party or who is currently friends with whom, users will now have the opportunity to endorse products.

 

Social networking sites have become a boom business for advertisers in recent years and it looks like the trend will continue to grow. 

 

The New York Times reports: “Facebook now will give advertisers the ability to create their own profile pages on its system that will let users identify themselves as fans of a product. Each user’s news feed will contain items like ‘Bobby Smith is now a fan of Toyota Prius.’”

 

But what good does this do the users of Facebook? You make no money by endorsing products and now advertisers will have access to all that data you provided on your Facebook page. They will be able to target you based on your political leanings, relationship status, location or any other information you have posted on your page. 

 

The only real benefit to users is that they can use the tool, in a limited sense, to advertise for themselves. If you sell on ebay you will be able to tell people, via the news feed, what you have up for auction.

Before you advertise for free, keep in mind that most endorsement deals come with huge paychecks and long-term contracts. If you really have the power to sell a product, you should make sure you’re getting paid. 

What to do with that money grandma gave you

Most college students don’t have any extra cash to invest, but if you do have savings you might want to consider putting some of that money into a Certificate of Deposit which is more commonly called a CD.While a regular savings account has an interest rate of about 0.25 percent, a CD can have an interest rate of 4.46 percent for a four month commitment said Jennifer Bugge, Assistant Financial Center Manager at Washington Mutual’s Wallingford Center.“The interest rates are unsteady and that is reflected in the low rates for savings accounts,” Bugge said. “We don’t know what is going to happen in the long-term, especially with 2008 being an election year, so the interest rates for long-term CDs are going to be lower.”This means that the highest interest rate is for a four month commitment and is cut in half for a five month or more commitment. So if the interest rate is 4 percent for four months it will be about 2 percent for five months.You can open a CD up with about $1000, though the minimum deposit will vary from institution to institution. You will be penalized if you withdraw before the date it becomes available, so keep your emergency money in a separate account. A CD is a good way to make money off of funds that would normally be sitting stagnant.Check with your bank for the most current rates – they change every week.

Searching for Money

Receiving a scholarship can lighten your financial burden considerably during the college years, but if you don’t receive on from your university there are still many more options. Scholarship search sites can help you navigate the numerous awards available, but they are not all created equal. Make sure you create a special Yahoo! e-mail account for your scholarship search; some of these sites make their money selling your e-mail address and others are blocked by more sophisticated sites.www.collegeplan.orgThis site is hard to navigate and is not very useful, it is more suited for high school students looking for information than college students looking for money.www.hecb.wa.gov/paying/waaidprgm/waaidprgmindex.asp The Washington Higher Education Coordinating Board website is clean and easy to use. It contains information on grants and scholarships that pertain to Washington state residents. You can find out if you are eligible for state programs on this site, but most are grants or scholarships for high school seniors. Still worth a quick browse.https://apps.collegeboard.com/cbsearch_ss/welcome.jsp You probably haven’t used this site since you took the SAT, but it does have a wide scholarship database search and is not too difficult to use. It includes internship opportunities and each scholarship description has contact information for the organization giving out the award. If you are looking to cast a wide net, this search will work well.www.collegedata.com/cs/index.jhtmlThis is a very busy website with so much going on it is hard to know where to look first. When imputing data into the scholarship finder be aware that it is organized strangely and you might need to look under “Humanities” or some other broad field to find your major. The search feature works well and as a nice addition includes subsets of the field. When I searched for journalism the results included awards for related fields like copy editing. Recommended.

Want to be a Fulbright Scholar?

The University of Washington has so many scholarship offices that it can be difficult for students to figure out which one would serve their needs best. The Undergraduate Scholarship Office is one of these organizations and, though it does assist undergraduate students, it has a more specific function.“We exist . . . to help facilitate national application scholarships,” said Mona Pitre-Collins the director of this office. “We help students understand the process.”These scholarships include the Rhodes, Marshall, Fulbright and the Cambridge Gates, all highly competitive national scholarships. Pitre-Collins points out the your GPA is the gatekeeper for these awards, so keep it high. You need a 3.6 to 3.7 if you want to be able to compete though the application might only require a 3.5.“You have to have a plan of action,” Pitre-Collins stressed. If you want to apply for any of these scholarships you need to start working towards them immediately. Do your research and tailor your activities towards the application; many require specific things that can take years to achieve.“Coming in and making an application is the nomination in many cases,” said Pitre-Collins. Students can’t wait around for others to put them up for the honor, they must be pro-active.Most of these scholarship applications are due in the fall, info sessions happen in the spring and you need to start thinking about next year now.

Money Matters: You Can’t Live Without It

Hello poor college students and welcome to Campus Capital, your source for financial information that actually makes sense.

The aim of this blog is to make the money search easier for those at the University of Washington; it is easier to compete on a local level than in national competitions for funds. On it I will link you to resources and help explain how to navigate the financial world both in, and outside, of college.

Those who pay their way through college know it is an expensive and exasperating process. Students are constantly told that there are thousands, perhaps millions, of dollars out there for them, but sifting through all the paperwork from multiple organizations can be daunting.
Graduating with serious college debt is not only bad for your bank account; it can hamper your career options as well.

Students with outstanding loans do not have the luxury to take unpaid (or poorly paid) internships – they must start working right away, and not necessarily in the field of their choice.

This blog will also include ways to cut costs across the board and will attempt to demystify the various financial jargon so often thrown at unsuspecting and uninformed investors.

Check here regularly for the latest info on scholarships, financial aid pitfalls and advice from those in the money business.