what's worth spending money on

View of the snowy courtyard from inside Nymphenburg Palace, December 2010.  Travel is a high priority for me, so in my budget, it is worth saving for, planning thoughtfully, and spending on.

To gain greater control over your finances, decide carefully and thoughtfully what the most important expenditures for you are, and work towards eliminating the rest.  How I allot my discretionary expenditures is something I've been working on increasingly in the last several months-- aiming towards prioritizing better and fine-tuning my budget.

In contrast with my previous post, these are things I've decided are worth spending my money on:
-world travel (on a small budget)
-visiting/staying in touch with family and friends
-used books
-college classes
-better quality/ healthier food
-additional/unplanned giving to a cause that's important to me
-occasional treats like wine or champagne and high-quality, real chocolate
-memorable events or experiences--  celebrating a meal out on a special occasion, going to a concert, a hiking or skiing trip, visiting a museum or historical site, etc.

Everyone's priorities are personal, so pick and choose carefully which expenditures are MOST important to you, and prioritize accordingly.  My intention is to have more money left to direct towards these important things through budgeting more thoughtfully and deliberately, and developing the self-control to not let what I earn slip through my fingers (or, perish the thought, escalate into consumer debt.)

The things I choose to spend discretionary money on are, of course, a secondary priority.  My monthly income is first allotted towards:
1.  Contributing to a supplemental retirement fund (in my case, a 457b plan for state employees)
2.  Transferring a pre-determined amount of money automatically into savings to build up a savings fund
3.  Paying down debt
     -Right now, my first priority is what remains of my only private student loan, which has a relatively high  interest rate.
     -Second priority, which I will focus on in my budget in two months, will be my car loan.
4.  Setting money aside to pay for class tuition and books, so that I can pay for these upcoming expenses in cash rather than on credit.
5.  Any planned giving
     I'm a fan of Compassion International and Save the Children as well as a few other local/national organizations, but any charity/cause you choose to support should be checked out first to verify that most of your contribution is going towards what they claim to be supporting.  Guidestar and Charity Navigator provide resources for this.

What, to you, is worth spending discretionary money on?

moneysaving tips for college kids

Your education is undoubtedly an investment in your future, and in your capacity to earn over a lifetime.  However, I would like to encourage you in the strongest terms possible to avoid accumulating debt during your student years.  Here are a handful of simple ways to save on the cost of your college education-- from someone who knows:

-CLEP tests.  This pretty much allowed me to graduate at all.  These are computer-based tests that you pay about $75 dollars for (though probably a bit more these days, and the cost may vary by institution) that award college credit for prior knowledge (though you can also just memorize a textbook on the subject, like I did for a few of them).  I earned a year and a half (18 hours) of credit this way, and saved myself many thousands of dollars, being at a private institution.

-Think long and hard about your choice of major.  I followed my less practical instincts and majored in Creative Writing--  and now, a few years later, I'm shelling out cash to pay for education classes, since I am now-- as I knew perfectly well I probably would be-- a teacher.  I still plan to be a full-time writer someday, though, so the background is still useful to me.  Just make sure you graduate with an actual plan.  And, ideally, a backup plan.

-Use distance education-- right now a 3-credit-hour distance course I am taking through a public university here in NC costs only $350.  At for-profit distance education universities, the price might be almost double, so try to find these courses through a public institution or community college.

-Increase your load to graduate early.  I did this towards the end and, by upping the number of CLEP tests I was taking as well, squeezed two semesters of work into my final one.  Obviously this saves you not only tuition costs, but dorm, food, and general living costs-- thousands of dollars.


Handy tips for current high-schoolers
-Consider dual-enrollment classes while still in high school.  I tried this my senior year but unfortunately became over-committed and ended up withdrawing.  This is a great opportunity to get a head start on your college graduation requirements and get some general ed courses out of the way-- and, importantly, it gives you a feel for what will be expected from you in college course work.

-Consider community college.  If you do this for even just your first year of college, while you're taking the general classes, you could really save a ton of money.

-Do apply for every scholarship possible!  Do the research.  Treat it like a job.  I won some I didn't think I had a chance at-- and I can guarantee you will miss out on 100% of the ones you don't apply for.


Additional tips for saving money while in college
-Whenever possible, buy textbooks used online, and at the end of the semester sell them online-- the bookstore buy-back scam at the end of the semester just takes advantage of you.  If you sell the book online you may well break even, assuming they haven't published a new edition in the last ten seconds (which happens, unfortunately, quite often).

-Think about living at home-- this not only saves the cost of a dorm or an apartment, but should allow you to skip the mandatory meal plan, or at least get a lower-priced one.  One of the biggest wastes of money for me in college was the mandatory meal plan-- I always had a large quantity of unused meals left over at the end of the semester, with no roll-over.


One last tip for college students (or those soon-to-be)
Run far, far away from credit cards.  If you do choose to get one-- if you can be grown-up about it, you can start to build your credit history-- always pay the balance in full before it's due.  But I'll be honest, the vast majority of college students (myself included, at the time) should just run in the other direction.  The data supports this-- the average college student graduates with thousands in consumer (credit card) debt.  Choose to be the exception.


And one really final tip, and by far the most important:
Enjoy it-- college never lasts nearly as long as we'd like it to.