Jive and Maki's Guide to Enjoying College

[MakiSupaStar]

Money tips

- Seek every source for financial aid as possible. In addition to standard sources from your FAF, consider every possible source. Go to the financial aid office at your school. Research on the internet for scholarships. Talk to your employers, or your parent's employers to see if there is a financial aid available. Talk to whatever club, organization, etc. they are involved with and see what you can muster up. You never know where you might find aid. And once you're in college, don't give up the search. You can still qualify for additional financial aid once you're already in school, and sometimes you have a better chance to get them. Make sure you do all your paperwork properly, and submit them on time. Better yet, submit them early.

- Consider your major before you take out that loan. I've seen this mistake countless times. A student takes out a huge loan towards a degree that won't allow them to get a job that can pay off that loan. It's one thing to take out a $80,000 loan towards being a doctor, but it's another thing to take out that same loan to be a basket weaver making $20K a year. Now, if you really want to do basket weaving and think you can make a go of it, then consider more inexpensive ways of getting an education as well as saving up money so that you are not accruing interest while making a name for yourself and getting on your feet in the real world.

- See if you can get student loan deferrment or forgiveness through service after college. Americorp, Peace Corps, VISTA, can give you loan repayment for a year or more of service. There are also teaching opportunities in rural and impoverished areas that will offer student loan deferrent or repayment. The same goes for the medial and legal field as well. Also, the federal government has a student loan repayment program to help retain employees.

- A credit card is not free money. The credit card companies are not dumb. By getting students in when they are young, they can make a lifetime of interest from them. You will have to pay the credit card company back, and the last thing you want is a terrible credit rating when you come out of college. It will affect you ability to buy big ticket items such as a car, or house and it can affect your ability to get certain jobs (i.e. jobs that require a high security clearance). If you have to use the card, pay it back as soon as you can. Have a plan in hand for how you will pay it back when you do use it.

- Use your meal plan. You paid for it, so you may as well use it. Take an item back to your room if you can. The food is better for you than the dollar menu, and you get more of it. The cost of a meal plan is cheaper than an equivalent of eating out or buying groceries.

- Take into account the additional expense when living off cmapus before doing it. Getting your own pad is great, but it costs more. You will spend more money on cleaning materials, TP, paper towels,utilties, groceries, etc. So consider that when budgeting for that apartment of yours.

- Make a budget. There are two ways to do this. First is to take an account of what you are spending on for the month, break them up into various categories such as gas, utilities, etc., and then assess what you are overspending on. The second method is to begin with how much money you get a month, and then divvy it up among the various categories. If you find that you are having a shortfall every month, then figure out a way to either spend less money or make more of it.

- Put a little bit of money away regularly. Even if it's just a buck, get in the habit of saving a little of your money every month/week/whatever. Emergencies come up, and it's better to tap into those funds than to take out an interest bearing loan or making the call of shame back home. Also, you get in the habit of saving, which will serve you well after college. Spend your money and have a good time, just have a little left over for more fun later.

- Spread out your spending. Most of your spending happens at the beginning of the school year. I was on scholarship, and money came to me in the form of a check at the beginning of each semester, so that's how I spent it. But, I found that if you spread things out, you can save some money. Buying used books is easier to do early, since they aren't likely to run out. But, if you can buy things as you need them as opposed to all at once you can save. Students drop out and give stuff away. You may find a friend who will sell you a book cheap. You may drop a course, and find you don't need that book anymore. There may be a sale on stuff later. There's many reasons to defer a purchase, but sometimes it isn't practical. But if you can do it. You get better cash flow, and more money to use for stuff you hadn't thought of early in the year. For example, money spent on that Lava lamp in September would have come in useful when I needed to replace the alternator in my car in October.

- Get a job. It doesn't have to be a full time job, just one to get some cash flowing. Not only for the cash, but for the work experience which is becoming more and more important than the degree you end up with. Consider starting your own business, since you'll have more free time and energy to do it in college than probably any other time in your life.

- Make friends and trade favors. The more friends you have, the more opportunities you have to buck the system and save some dough. I had a good friend who worked at a pizza place, and every week or so we'd get a burnt pizza or a bad order. Another friend of ours was a model for RJ Reynolds, and we got free Winstons and lighters. Barter services and goods. I wrote a paper for someone who fixed my car, and sold my notes for a couple of pizzas. The list of these types of things go on and on, and without them college would have made me more broke and have less fun.

I got nothing to add to this. It's all sound advice.

 

[NJL]

jive went to college like 20 years ago. everything's changed since then.

 

[MakiSupaStar]

Tip: How to save for beer money

Well we all like to have our fridges full of beer in college, but with what little we have left after we've done our month budget, I remember finding it hard to scrape together funds to make a happy fridge. Often I would sacrifice food in order to have beer. Beer is food, except sometimes you actually need real food.

First off, figure out how much beer you need to get you through the week. For me, it was consistently 24 beers, and most of those would be drunk on Thursday through Saturday. You're best bet for buying beer is going in with roommates. You get more for your money. This only works if you have roommates that drink. If you drink, then I suggest picking roommates that drink, otherwise they're going to get real sick of your drunken tomfoolery real quick. I lived in four different households, with the most being two other roommates. We would usually buy our beer from Costco. There are some great deals out there that can knock your cost/beer down to somewhere around 30 cents/beer. Things are different when I was in school. We had some deals at Costco that were like 25 cents a beer. The problem when you buy from Costco is that they don't always have what you like, but they've almost always got something good there. This is where I currently buy my Sierra Nevada's from. Some beers to consider on a student budget, are Henry Weinharts, Coors Light, Corona, Pacifico, Dos Equis, Coors, Natural Light, MGD's, etc. Notice how I didn't say Bud? Budweisser was singlehandedly responsible for creating the grumpiest households. Hangovers, beer craps, and horrendous beer farts. Beer craps, lead to a run on toilet paper too. Budweisser equals bad. Anyway, a happy fridge is the goal. A happy fridge is a fridge full of beer.

Tip 1: Figure out a list of community items and buy in bulk. Paper towels, toilet paper (unscented is the best - I had a roommate that got a rash from the scented ones - you can imagine the heckling he received for that), condiments (ketchup, mustard, mayo, soy sauce, barbecue sauce, salad dressing, etc), soap, laundry detergent, dishwashing liquid (if applicable), cleaning supplies, trash bags, sandwich bags, etc, and MEAT. Then split the cost evenly between everyone.

Yes meat. Buy your meat from Costco. You can divide up basic meats evenly and get more per person if you buy in bulk and then split it into freezable portions for yourselves. Not all meat, but things like boneless chicken, ground beef, perhaps steaks (we did). Anything other than that, buy on your own.

Tip 2: Get a sunday paper and collect coupons. Most markets have double coupon days know them and only shop on those days. Shop during hours when no one else is shopping (being a student you have this luxury). Cut, save, and only buy things you have a coupon for. Don't cut coupons for things you don't eat. Waste of time and money.

Tip 3: Buy the stuff that is discounted for clearance because of expiration dates, especially snacky things. However, use your own judgement, especially with dairy stuff.

Tip 4: NEVER SHOP STONED OR HUNGRY. This is the surest way to getting fat, and broke.

Tip 5: Keep your eyes open for the sexies. Ask them for help. They love helping the seemingly helpless guy shopping for stuff. I can't tell you how many romps in the hey started in the supermarket. Hey why don't you come over and show me how to cook this stuff?

Tip 6: If you live within driving distance of your parents house, clear their cupboards every trip you take. Mom's are suckers for the kids leaving home. My mom would have 8-10 shopping bags ready to go everytime I stopped by. I would take these, AND clear their cupboards and eat like a king for a solid two weeks after visiting the folks. Visit them often. They like it and you make out like a bandit.

Tip 7: Don't develop expensive tastes. Forget the sushi. Save it for someone else's dime. Learn to appreciate a full belly from eating instant ramen.

Tip 8: Know your asian markets. There are so many good things in an asian food market that you can get really cheap. Again, get the sexies to help you with translating the packages. Korean markets have great deals on fresh produce. My wife and I still hit up korean markets once in awhile. If you want veggies, consider farmer's markets too. There's a place right around the corner from my house with fresh produce, that's sometimes half the cost for better quality stuff.

Tip 9: Trader Joes. Enough said.

Tip 10: When drinking, drink other people's beer first. Don't be shy about showing up to a party first to get drunk off their dime. Pre-partying is the surest way to cutting into your beer budget.

Tip 11: Coin jars. Keep one around the house for emergency beer runs. Have fines for things so it fills up. We had quarter fines for funny crap. Have fun with that. It's a win win.

 

[Thor]

I discovered this useful tip in my junior year. I think it was Anthro 101 or some BS class.

'A 10 page term paper is required.'

You really think that that prof actually
wants to read 10 pages of your BS, stretching what
little useful information you have into 10 pages?

How do you get him to a accept and like a shorter paper, 5 or
6 pages instead?

First, write a decent concise 5 page paper.

Then, when it comes time to hand in the paper, take careful
note of how the prof collects the papers.

If he stacks them on top of each other, rush right in and hand
it to him so your paper is in the bottom third of the stack.

If he adds to the bottom of the stack, hang back a bit and
get your paper in later, so that it is in the bottom third.

The first few papers always take the 10 page hit. After the guy is done
reading half the stack or more he runs into your
short but sweet paper on the functional symbolism of peyote in the
Shaman culture of the Mayans, and you have demonstrated 2 valuable
things: You know the subject and you saved him time.

Your grade just went up a whole letter
and you wrote a 50% shorter paper.

 

[Ben Lesser]

Solid advice, Thor. I seriously can't stress the number of times (virtually all of them) that I have written a paper that is nowhere near the 'required' (i.e. recommended ) page limit. I figure, if the paper is 8-10 pages, and I've written a great paper that clocks in at 6 pages, why would I want to ruin it by weighing it down with filler?

 

[Visirale]

Yeah grocery store while high is a horrible idea, made that one a few times.

 

[Vince S.]

I discovered this useful tip in my junior year. I think it was Anthro 101 or some BS class.

'A 10 page term paper is required.'

You really think that that prof actually
wants to read 10 pages of your BS, stretching what
little useful information you have into 10 pages?

How do you get him to a accept and like a shorter paper, 5 or
6 pages instead?

First, write a decent concise 5 page paper.

Then, when it comes time to hand in the paper, take careful
note of how the prof collects the papers.

If he stacks them on top of each other, rush right in and hand
it to him so your paper is in the bottom third of the stack.

If he adds to the bottom of the stack, hang back a bit and
get your paper in later, so that it is in the bottom third.

The first few papers always take the 10 page hit. After the guy is done
reading half the stack or more he runs into your
short but sweet paper on the functional symbolism of peyote in the
Shaman culture of the Mayans, and you have demonstrated 2 valuable
things: You know the subject and you saved him time.

Your grade just went up a whole letter
and you wrote a 50% shorter paper.

That is awesome, I am going to try that.

My roommate from last semester showed me a pretty cool trick for "expanding" papers: In Word, click "Edit", "Find", and put the period into the search box. Then "Replace" and replace the font 12 periods with font 16. Extremely hard to notice unless you look at it with a magnifying glass, and increases the paper length a good 2 to 3 pages.

 

[Linas]

That is awesome, I am going to try that.

My roommate from last semester showed me a pretty cool trick for "expanding" papers: In Word, click "Edit", "Find", and put the period into the search box. Then "Replace" and replace the font 12 periods with font 16. Extremely hard to notice unless you look at it with a magnifying glass, and increases the paper length a good 2 to 3 pages.

Thanks, this will come in handy one day.

 

[Stumbo]

My roommate from last semester showed me a pretty cool trick for "expanding" papers: In Word, click "Edit", "Find", and put the period into the search box. Then "Replace" and replace the font 12 periods with font 16. Extremely hard to notice unless you look at it with a magnifying glass, and increases the paper length a good 2 to 3 pages.

More Word tricks to increase (or decrease) paper length:
1) Add .5 to the font size (10 to 10.5). Arial font allows this.

2) Highlight a paragraph, right click in the highlighted area, select "Paragraph", change line spacing to exact, then slightly increase (decrease) line spacing.

3) Sometimes you want to get more info on 1 page, click at the beginning of a blank line, decrease the font, say from 12 to 4 (arial allows this). If you have to do some editing, you'll have to change the font back to the original.

 

[bassaficionado6]

dormcest?

 

[EADG mx]

More Word tricks to increase (or decrease) paper length:
1) Add .5 to the font size (10 to 10.5). Arial font allows this.

2) Highlight a paragraph, right click in the highlighted area, select "Paragraph", change line spacing to exact, then slightly increase (decrease) line spacing.

3) Sometimes you want to get more info on 1 page, click at the beginning of a blank line, decrease the font, say from 12 to 4 (arial allows this). If you have to do some editing, you'll have to change the font back to the original.

I know it's a lame high school trick but I still do this, and I've never gotten called on it (maybe because everyone else is doing it too?)

 

[MakiSupaStar]

dormcest?

It's always good to have some steady chicks to hook up with in your local dorm. It's also convenient if you forget your key, or get so drunk you can't figure out how to open your own dorm. The best part is that you get to have sex with them in the meantime. I would suggest this set up for multiple dorm buildings. I had three plus a few local girls in Newport where I lived. Just keep track if what you say to whom. That can get a bit tricky. My friend only hooked up with chicks named Maria in order to keep confusion to a minimum.

 

[EricF]

My friend only hooked up with chicks named Maria in order to keep confusion to a minimum.

In this part of the world, that still leaves a pretty large dating pool. Good thinking!

 

[MakiSupaStar]

In this part of the world, that still leaves a pretty large dating pool. Good thinking!

Yeah he was dating all kind of girls. Latina's, Filipinas, African Americans, Native Americas, and even good old fashioned white Catholic girls. That guy was onto something. I wondered what happened to him.

 

[JNowiski]

college is a waste of time. with the current economical condition and the global financial crisis, i've decided once i'm free from the burden of serving the government, that i'm going to start a hobo gang. Not just any hobo gang mind you...But the biggest hobo gang this world has ever seen. once everyone has lost there jobs, they will have no choice but to join MY hobo gang or try and survive in a world that is run by my hobo gang. Sure, there will be rival hobo gangs, And that's exactly why i'm going to start my hobo gang as soon as i possibly can. so if anyone here wants to go ahead and join the ranks of my hobo gang, just let me know, maybe it'll earn you a spot in my hobo officer's corps. and YOU could be my right hand man. of course, if you're the bigger, not so bright type, i will need Goons that can take care of the dirty work (ie: dealing with the people that don't join my hobo gang). so yeah, that's basically it.


...out.

 

[MakiSupaStar]

^Then you'll need to read this book first. It's a really good book. One of my favorites. It's by Jack Black. The actor by the same name was so impressed with this story he took his name as his stage name when he formed Tenacious D.
Aptly titled "You Can't Win"
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[Phalex]

college is a waste of time. with the current economical condition and the global financial crisis, i've decided once i'm free from the burden of serving the government, that i'm going to start a hobo gang. Not just any hobo gang mind you...But the biggest hobo gang this world has ever seen. once everyone has lost there jobs, they will have no choice but to join MY hobo gang or try and survive in a world that is run by my hobo gang. Sure, there will be rival hobo gangs, And that's exactly why i'm going to start my hobo gang as soon as i possibly can. so if anyone here wants to go ahead and join the ranks of my hobo gang, just let me know, maybe it'll earn you a spot in my hobo officer's corps. and YOU could be my right hand man. of course, if you're the bigger, not so bright type, i will need Goons that can take care of the dirty work (ie: dealing with the people that don't join my hobo gang). so yeah, that's basically it.


...out.

I'm over 6' tall, and weigh about 265 or so. I also have a strong back and a weak mind. I might be interested in an upper management position.

What sort of compensation package are we talkin about here?? 401(k)?? Dental? Per Diam?

 

[L-A]

That is awesome, I am going to try that.

My roommate from last semester showed me a pretty cool trick for "expanding" papers: In Word, click "Edit", "Find", and put the period into the search box. Then "Replace" and replace the font 12 periods with font 16. Extremely hard to notice unless you look at it with a magnifying glass, and increases the paper length a good 2 to 3 pages.

Pffft. I can spot a 14 size space in a 12 size text.

Actually, I think this is a bad sign.

 

[JNowiski]

I'm over 6' tall, and weigh about 265 or so. I also have a strong back and a weak mind. I might be interested in an upper management position.

What sort of compensation package are we talkin about here?? 401(k)?? Dental? Per Diam?

You'll get all the dental and health care you need, mainly because all healthcare providers will eventually work for me and my hobo organization. sounds like you'd be great for an upper management position, as long as you can make people do what you say then management sounds like a good fit. when the time is right well discuss plans for future business. but since you stepped up, you'll be remembered when the time comes.


And Maki, that sounds like possibly one of the greatest books ever written.

 

[MakiSupaStar]

You'll get all the dental and health care you need, mainly because all healthcare providers will eventually work for me and my hobo organization. sounds like you'd be great for an upper management position, as long as you can make people do what you say then management sounds like a good fit. when the time is right well discuss plans for future business. but since you stepped up, you'll be remembered when the time comes.


And Maki, that sounds like possibly one of the greatest books ever written.

It is. I flew threw it in about a week. It has a forward by William Burroughs too.