What up everybody! After working like a dog all week long (see: my lack of posting), I came home Saturday night to one of my favorite emails of all time. My school was notifying me that my financial aid award for the 2011-2012 school year was ready to view. I’ve received a few of these emails over the last couple of months as my loan stuff and everything comes in, so I knew something good was about to happen.

A few clicks later and this is what I’m staring at:

My favorite screenshot of all time.

See that top line worth $2,690? That definitely wasn’t there before. My study abroad trip just cost me $2,700 less than it was going to. So how what sorcery did I have to perform for this to happen? I filled out a form. Not kidding.

Way back in March, I filled out my school’s continuing student scholarship form. I didn’t expect to get anything. The form itself even warns you that most scholarships go to juniors and seniors. But it only asked for a 300 word essay, so I deleted 200 words from the previous essay I’d written for another scholarship and copy and pasted it in. Efficiency at its finest.

I’d say it took me 20 minutes to complete that scholarship form. That makes my hourly wage something like $8,070! I’ll take that any day of the week and twice on Sunday. Now I really don’t have an excuse to come home with at least some leftover money.

What’s the easiest way you’ve ever “made” money?

I love me some free money. Even more so when I wasn’t expecting it at all. That’s exactly what happened on Friday. I got an email from my school letting me know my financial aid offer was available to view and accept. I’d been waiting for this to come for weeks – even though I knew most of it would be “aid” in the form of loans. You never know when your school will surprise you with an extra scholarship or additional aid.

That’s exactly what they did. In addition to the typical mash up of loans and a renewable scholarship from I received in high school, I was awarded a grant for $1,467. Grants = free money that, never needs repaid. This freakin’ made my day. I’m sure Debbie Downer would be all “Big deal, it’s only $1,467. Look at how much you’re still borrowing.” But let’s get real people – every dollar given to me is a dollar I never have to repay with interest. Debbie Downer can STFU.

So this aid is awesome, but IDK who made the decision to give it to me. The 2011-2012 aid year is based on 2010 taxes – that’s what you used (or should have used) to fill out this year’s FAFSA. In 2010, I made a million times (not really)  more money than I did in 2009. Thanks to U.S. Census Bureau, I banked something $7,000 plus an additional $2,000 and change from a part-time job later in the year. Even stranger, I’m 99% sure my dad’s income went up too. This surprise money though  is a good reminder to:

1 – Fill out the FAFSA. Even if the government won’t give you money, a lot of schools and outside scholarships want a copy of the FAFSA you submitted to determine what you’re eligible for.

2 – Apply for continuing student aid. I’m thinking that this is what allowed me to get a better award this year. There are some scholarships and aid that you can’t get until after your first year – each school has their own way of dealing with funds.

3 – Be awesome. This has nothing to do with the new grant I got, but remember that a good GPA will also result in free money a lot of times. My 3.5 HS GPA got me a $1,500 yearly scholarship renewable for all 4 years. To keep it, I just have a maintain a 3.0 GPA. That’s $6,000 I won’t have to pay back.

*My Personal Finance Journey hosted this week’s Carnival of Personal Finance: Most Expensive Hotel Rooms in the World Edition. Check out financial posts from dozens of different PF bloggers.

Lately, I’ve been hearing about how coupons are the coolest thing since sliced bread. TLC even came out with a show called “Extreme Couponing” where they show individuals who buy crazy amounts of stuff for almost no money. On the surface, it seems like a cool idea, but I’m not sure how practical it is.

I haven’t watched an entire episode yet, so I don’t understand 100% how it works, but the goal is to find ways to use coupons to get the cheapest price possible. Some stores let you combine coupons and others have reward programs, like CVS ExtraCare Bucks, that sweeten the deal.

At first the results are impressive. From a clip I saw, this woman had $4,000 worth of razors. She paid nothing for them. But the more I think about it, I don’t think it’s worth it, at least not for most people. One lady says she spends 30 hours a week couponing. That might work for a stay at home mom, but it’s probably not gonna fly in a household where both partners work. The work required also seems incredibly boring. The last thing I ever want to do is spend 2 hours clipping coupons.

Then there’s the whole buying stuff just to buy it factor. Some of these people have 100 sticks of deodorant. I’ve never looked up how much deodorant a typical person goes through in a lifetime, but 100 seems like an awful lot. Does anyone need 500 rolls of paper towels? I don’t think so. Even if you did, you’d have to dedicate a whole room of your house to storing all this crap.

I’m sure extreme couponing works for some people, but there’s a large group it doesn’t work for: students, single people. small familes, & and people who work a lot. One couple on the show actually gives most of their stuff away to food banks and shelters, so I can get behind that. But I doubt couponing will ever be a large part of my life.

Are you an extreme couponer? If you’ve seen the show, do you think any of these people have gone overboard?

Watching the local news is always an adventure. One channel in my area has been advertising a “special report” about juvenile sex offenders all week. They remind viewers to tune in to “Learn how to protect your kids from what’s out there!”. OMG – it’s the end of the world. Not only does the news try to make us afraid of our own shadow, they interview people who don’t make any sense.

Yesterday, the news was doing a report on high gas prices. They interviewed a few people while they pumped their gas. Almost every single one of them said that they weren’t getting a full tank because it was so expensive. Instead, they were going to fill up more often. The news anchor acted like this was some genius money saving plan.

It’s not.

At this rate, gas is only going to go up! Prices have been rising for weeks. The chances of you filling your tank and then finding out the price went down the next day is slim. A lot of us already fill up once a week anyway, who wants to add another trip onto that???

Besides the time savings, the amount of money saved is worthless. A 5 cent drop in the price of gas means you save 75 cents if your tank holds 15 gallons. Whoop de doo. I don’t know about you, but I value my time way more. Saving less than a dollar for a minimum of probably 10 minutes to get gas? No thanks.

I’m all for saving money, but come on people. Work smarter, not harder

I don’t know if I have lucky SOB powers whenever I’m shopping or something, but sometimes I get the craziest deals. Last year, I sold my refurbished iPhone 3G for more than I originally bought it for. I picked it up from AT&T for $99. Somebody on eBay bought it 18 months later for around $150. I was thoughtful enough to include a broken screen. Boo-yah!

In terms of profit, that transaction was amazing. But I recently did something I never thought possible: bought a college textbook for almost nothing.

Thanks to some slick Google searches, I found the accounting book I needed for $5.88. That’s not a typo. Shipping brought the total to ten bucks. Steal of the century if you ask me – I’m still waiting for the robbery charges to be filed. OK, bad joke. Buying new would have cost me $147.38, meaning I saved 93%. AWWWW YEAHHHH.

Deals like this don’t happen everyday, so it’s important to celebrate the small (or large) victories. We work hard for our dolla bills and no one should be giving them away all willy-nilly.

What’s the best deal you’ve ever gotten? Am I only one who get an adrenaline rush when I save mad amounts of cash?

Man I love Fridays. Especially Fridays that are warm and sunny, something I haven’t experienced in months. On my day off from the retail world, I thought I’d talk about all the rewards programs I’m part of. While I may not love Fridays as much as Rebecca Black (yep, you knew it was coming!):

I do love rewards and free money. My wallet and keyring seem to be exploding with membership cards. I’m rocking rewards credit cards from both Chase and Discover, and looking to add some other cards to the mix as well. I also sign up for every store reward program that’s out there when offered – I can’t say no! Right now I’m a card carrying member of BestBuy’s Reward Zone, Speedway’s Speedy Rewards, and American Eagle’s AEREWARD$. I also signed up for 3 or 4 frequent flyer programs to start racking up some miles before my trip.

I’ve heard that these programs only exist to get people to spend more money. I don’t know if I agree with that. I’m sure some people go out of there way with spending to reach the next “level” in some programs, but that’s not my style. Instead, I buy what I need to buy and collect the reward points offered. By far, I think the best program I use is Discover® Student Card’s 5% cash back on rotating categories.

Are you a fan of rewards programs? Do they really make us spend more or shop more often?

Hope the comic didn’t offend anyone – I try to keep things PG-13 around here. When I feel like it. But in all seriousness, I felt exactly like the guy in the last panel when my friend casually mentioned that she had taken the same class last quarter.

Text books are wicked expensive. One book can easily cost $150 brand new and it’s only used for 10 weeks! So far this year, I’ve had at least one book that I had to purchase from my school’s bookstore for various, dumb reasons. Anyone who’s been in college for more than a week can tell you that nothing good happens in the college bookstore. It’s financial hell.

Thanks to my awesome friend though, I saved $145. That’s half of my book costs for the quarter! Besides the obvious “I saved money!!!” tone to this post, I thought my situation was a perfect example of the value of friends.

Obviously I value my friends for way more than just free stuff from time to time. But the financial perks are nice too! Friends help each other out in a ton of different ways. Sometimes that’s by saving you $145. Sometimes it’s by bringing your buddy a six-pack over after his GF hits the road. Regardless, don’t be afraid to tap your social network if you need something!

Have you ever saved big thanks to a friend/classmate/co-worker? What’s the coolest thing you’ve ever provided?

I like saving money, especially when there’s no downside or negative consequence in exchange for saving that money. One easy way to save money is to simply remove yourself from situations where spending is tempting or “required”. Sounds easy, but it’s a bit harder in real life.

What exactly am I talking about?

Since I commute to school, I go through gas like it’s crack water. I’m spending around $200 per month just in gas to go to school, work, and any other random places I go. That’s based on driving to school 5 days a week, plus an occasional weekend trip. Driving 50 miles roundtrip in a shitty gas guzzling SUV costs around $9.114 if gas is $3.10, which it has been for the past few weeks. Sometimes higher. It finally hit me a few weeks ago to try to reduce how many days I have to be on campus.

Yesterday was the 1st day of priority registration (one of the perks of being in the honors program) and I managed to schedule all my spring quarter classes on M/W/F. By driving only 3 days a week, I’ll save $18.23 every week or $72.90 every month. With no change in the amount of coursework or added inconvenience, I’m going to save almost $73 every month from March until mid-June.

That’s a ton of money for no effort.

Even if you live on campus, you can use scheduling to save money. Don’t schedule your day so you have a break for lunch. Instead, take all morning classes or all afternoon classes. You won’t be as tempted to grab a bite to eat at the (overpriced) cafeterias or cafes.

Can you think of any ways to change your schedule to reduce what you spend? I’d love to hear some ideas from non-students, too!

(photo credit: Qfamily)

Based on today’s post title, you might think I’m sponsoring some type of giveaway or contest that involves music. That would be awesome, wouldn’t it? Unfortunately, I’m not that generous . Instead, I’m going to give a a run down of my favorite and at least quasi-legal ways to get music for f-r-e-e.

Pandora – Right now, this is my method of choice. Pandora gives you 40 hours a month of free steaming. The service operates like your own personal radio station. You type in a artist or song name, and they start playing similar music. Dead simple. You can give songs a thumb up or down and Pandora will learn what music you like. You can also have unlimited stations. I have a “Kid Cudi” station along with a separate “O.A.R” station, and of course a dozen others. For the bargain basement price of $36 a year, you get unlimited streaming with no advertisements.

Grooveshark – An on demand streaming site, meaning you can select specific songs to make up a play list. You can replay a song as many times you want, unlike Pandora where there’s no way to play a specific song at a specific time. You can also upload your music and stream it anywhere you have an Internet connection. Very cool, although I wonder about the legality.

Last.FM – Very similar to Pandora. Pick a song or artist and Last.FM plays similar music. But Last.FM add some cool social media features so you can easily share songs you like with your friends.

All three of these services are great ways to get music for free, without resorting to other, less acceptable methods. Not that I would know anything about them.

Borderline Inappropriate

After reading that title, I’m guessing a lot of you need to get your mind outta the gutter! No, I’m not talking about that type of “last”. I’m talking about the length of time you can go without spending money.

I logged in to Mint.com yesterday to check my account balances and make sure everything was on the up and up when I noticed I haven’t spent any money in 2011. I realize 2011 only encompasses 3 complete days at the moment, but still. None. Zero Dollars. Once I realized this, I thought “Hmm..can I make it 7 days? 10?” How many days can I go without spending any money?

Or rather, how long can I go without spending any money on impulse. I know I’ll have to buy gas in the next day or two and I have dinner plans on Friday night. Both of those things are either regular expenses or budgeted for. I’ll be eating at a nice-ish place on Friday, so I know I won’t eat out as much the rest of the month.

I’ve made it 5 days without buying coffee at the mall or a song on iTunes. I think I can stretch that out for at least a few more days. Maybe even a week. I know I’ll eventually buy something – and there’s nothing wrong with that. But I think it’s good to have periods of time where my debit and credit cards stay in my wallet, unused. It reminds me that, honestly, I have everything I need on a day to day basis. Even better than just making me feel good, it lets my savings (and checking) accounts grow.

How long have you gone without spending on impulses/wants? How long could you?