Money management tips for college students

People go to college and online universities to acquire professional education and give their career the much-needed boost. Most of them, however, involve in things that shatter their dreams of becoming a successful professional. One amongst those things is managing their funds poorly.

Though they don’t have many sources of income except for their parents, they try to get money from every possible source to enjoy days of freedom, without knowing the consequences of not repaying it. One of the major effects of it is ruined credit score since the beginning of their career. Let’s discuss few money management tips for college students that would definitely reduce, if not avoid these consequences.

1. Cut Your Credit Cards

Seriously. Take a scissor (thick one), pull out all your cards from your wallet and cut it up into two. It’s not done yet. You need to cut it into very tiny pieces or you will stick them and reuse them. Maybe this ‘cutting thing’ sounds weird, but majority population of the US is in debt due to credit card, because it makes spending so easy and fun. Repayment, however, becomes an impossible task then. So, avoid inculcating a habit of spending through credit card.

2. Avoid Late Payments

This is one of the major factors that affect your credit score. If you keep making payments on time, your score would improve gradually. Missing payments, or making late payments, however, ruins your score. This is one of the many habits people with bad credit have. If you are one of them, change your habits. Adopt these money management tips for college students. If you haven’t cut your cards, make sure you pay the full amount every month.

3. Start Saving Money

Remember, you, as college students, don’t have any other sources of generating money except for the pocket money you receive, and part time job, if any. What would you do if you meet with a financial emergency? How would you arrange for more money? In most cases, people borrow. Instead, it’s better to save money and be prepared for any such emergencies.

4. Start Investing

If you think you have accumulated enough, start investing your money to grow it considerably. It is, however, important to know about every investment product and how do they work before investing in any of them. Make sure you don’t invest in high-risk products like stocks, currencies, commodities, derivatives, etc. You can start with putting money in bonds, 401k, gold, CD’s, mutual funds, and so on.

These are some of the best money management tips for college students. These would, however, not be of any use if it’s not worked upon.

Source: Financialculture


Tags: ,

Posted by on Jan 18 2011. Filed under Student loans. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry

1 Comment for “Money management tips for college students”

  1. Jane
    February 1, 2011 - 3:38 pm

    Cut down on unnecessary expenses. I cut down on eating out and going out. Instead, I save money by cooking and having movie/game nights at home. I also got rid of my BlackBerry about bought a prepaid cell phone. Instead of spending hundereds of dollars on my phone bill, I am spending $45 a month for unlimited talk, text, and data. It’s an incredibly cheap plan and I am saving so much money!

You must be logged in to post a comment Login