I’m sure it’s every college student’s dream to live life king-size, but when you’re hampered by the basic fact that you have no money, you only hope you’re never reduced to the position of a pauper. Most students, unless they’re born with silver and golden spoons in their mouths, are barely able to eke out a comfortable existence in college because most of their money goes towards their tuition fees and the cost of books. So the primary aim of ever college student (besides that of studying, of course) is to enjoy four years of college without getting into that black hole called debt, and to do this, you must neither a borrower nor a lender be.

When you borrow money – or even other stuff like books, items of clothing and jewelry – you are at a disadvantage because:

• You are in debt, even if it is to your friends.

• When you don’t repay debts to friends, you risk losing the friendship forever.

• If you lose borrowed items that are financially valuable or that have sentimental value to the owner, you feel a sense of guilt that is hard to erase. Besides, you also risk the embarrassment of a dressing down or angry words from the owner of said items.

• You will be perceived as a perpetual borrower, someone who your friends and acquaintances will start to avoid sooner or later because of your borrowing habits (especially if you never return stuff).

When you lend your friends and fellow students money or your belongings, you stand to lose because:

• From a financial standpoint, it is a bad decision to loan small amounts of money to friends because of the high probability that they will never be paid back. If you insist on payment for amounts as low as $10 or $15, you’re going to be considered a cheapskate who hounds people for money, even if it is your own.

• It’s hard to keep track of your belongings when you lend them out to people, and if you don’t remember who borrowed a book (or some other object that is absolutely necessary) from you or if the person denies borrowing it, you are left in the unenviable position of having to spend more money and buy it again.

• If your friends lose your belongings, you cannot take them to task and are also forced to spend what little money you have to buy essential items.

When you decide to never borrow or lend and hold firm to the policy, you’ll find that college becomes much more financially friendly.

Stephanie’s note: What do you guys think — are you okay with lending and borrowing? Please share your experiences in the comments!

Upromise and Sallie Mae are giving away five $5,000 scholarships? Awesome! And this time around, it couldn’t be easier to enter. Just:

1. Join Upromise, if you haven’t already — it’s free!
2. Install the TurboSaver Toolbar

Now, ordinarily, I am not a fan of browser toolbars. I don’t like a lot of third-party things crowding up the area between my “Back” button and the website I’m looking at. But TurboSaver is a toolbar I actually recommend. Why? Because of the number of times I’ve seen people make a purchase online, and then about a day later say “Whoops, should have done that through Upromise! It would have given me 3% cash back!”

Yep, people who are already Upromise members miss the crucial step of going through Upromise to make purchases online. Not to name names (isn’t it funny how we always say that before we name names?), but my mother does this all the time! And my mother is a smart, tech-savvy lady. She just forgets which sites are affiliated with Upromise. Who can blame her? The list is really long and constantly growing!

So in this case, I believe in the power of the toolbar. Because all the toolbar does is alert you when you’re on an online shopping site that’s affiliated with Upromise. It’ll remind you to log in, so that you don’t miss out on any cashback from things you were about to buy anyway. (Which is what I really love, being a personal finance blogger and all.)

So even without the $5,000 prizes up for grabs, I’d recommend the TurboSaver toolbar. But because there is prize money up for grabs, you should definitely go get the toolbar now! (The sweepstakes ends October 15th, 2009 — so hurry up!)

The new college semester is about to start. You have selected your courses. You have paid your tuition. You have purchased your textbooks. Now it’s time to figure out this social life situation. Wait, what’s so difficult about figuring out your social life? Well if you fail to plan then you plan to fail. Saving money while trying to have a social life is a hot topic amongst 20 somethings these days. As a result I figured I would share some tips on saving money on entertainment:

Contact the establishment ahead of time

If you’re heading out in a large group then you should call the place ahead of time to confirm. Not only should you make reservations but you should swing some sort of savings. I mean after all you’re bringing the place your business (and the business of your friends). Some clubs will throw in free cover for the group and priority seating. The best we have ever been able to swing is a free limo pickup and free cover for a group of 10+.

Have a few drinks before you go out

If you guys are planning to go out strictly for drinks only then you should have a few drinks before you head out. This way you will drink less at the club/bar where the drinks are more expensive. Predrinking can save you thousands of dollars through your college career. Of course you don’t want to get intoxicated to the point that you make a fool of yourself but hopefully you know your limits by now. If not, you live you learn.

Use your student status for discounts

You can head out to the campus pub where drinks and food are traditionally cheaper. You can also go to bars that have special designated college nights. Another great option is to carry your student ID card on you because many places give student discounts. At most restaurants, if you can’t get a deal on drinks you can probably get a lower price on the food.

When it comes to movies, consider renting & staying in

Instead of paying $15 each to see a new release at the local movie theatre you should try having a movie night at someone’s house. One person rents the movie, someone else brings the food, another friend brings the drinks and you got a great night going. Believe me there are many movies out there to rent so don’t feel like your options are limited. I would like to personally recommend “old school” nights. Rent a movie you enjoyed many many years ago and watch it again. The Weekend At Bernie’s, Goodfellas, Terminator, just to name a few classics. Nothing wrong with a trip down memory lane.

I know there are more creative options for saving money on entertainment but this is where you the readers interact and get involved!

Is retirement the last thing on your mind right now? Fair enough! With textbooks, professors, and homework assignments taking up all of your brain power, it’s hard to think about starting your career, let alone ending it! But hear me out:

Did you ever have a math teacher ask you which you would rather have, $100 now, or a penny that doubles every day for a month? Did you take the $100?

Silly you. If you’ve got a penny that grows at 100% interest (which is what doubling is) per day, you’ll have $5,368,709.12 at the end of the month. That is the awesome power of compound interest.

Of course, if you can find an investment that truly returns 100% per day for 30 days, I’ll hire you as my financial advisor and we’ll start building our Scrooge McDuck money bin! But even 8% or 10% growth per year can net you a sweet future, especially if you let the money sit around for say, 40 years. Try playing around with this retirement calculator, keeping in mind that the stock market (as a whole) generally returns between 8 and 10%.

So if you start investing $3,000 per year at age 18 as a freshman, you’ll have $1,358,700 at age 65. After inflation, that works out to $534,358 in spending power (in today’s dollars). Not bad for $250 per month! But what if you wait? Wait until you’ve graduated from school and had a few years to establish yourself?

To get that same $1,358,700, you have to contribute $5,245 per year if you wait until age 25 to start investing. That’s $437 per month, or nearly twice as much just for waiting seven years!

Are you ready to get this show on the road and see big returns on your money? If you’ve followed all of the previous college money tips, you are. Because you’ll have a reasonable level of student loan debt (or none!), no credit card debt, and you’ll already be saving for your short and medium term goals. Which means if you’ve still got money left over, it’s time to think long term and open a retirement account.

For a college student, a Roth IRA is the type of retirement account you want to get. To learn what you need to do, I recommend the Get Rich Slowly Guide to Roth IRAs. Written by J.D. Roth (no relation to “Roth IRA”) of Get Rich Slowly, it covers everything you need to know to get started. It’s a really easy read at only 31 pages, but it packs a lot of punch.

The ebook costs only $7 — the cost of a combo meal at a fast food place. And if spending that $7 gets you investing now instead of waiting until after graduation… well, you do the math.

Check out all of the College Money Tips!

If you’ll take a moment, please note that the title of this tip is “Rent Some Textbooks” not “Rent Your Textbooks” and especially not “Rent All Your Textbooks.” Here’s why: every time I write about renting textbooks, someone comes along and says “But Stephanie! I actually want to keep most of my textbooks! They’re for my major and they’ll be helpful in a later class, or after college!”

I know this. I still have several books from several classes in college, even though I walked the stage and got my diploma in May. I’ve got some film textbooks to help me make better movies, and I’ve got my personal finance textbook to refer to while writing this site. And I’ve got Randy Pauch’s The Last Lecture — yes, that was an assigned textbook for a class!

So yeah, there are some books you just shouldn’t rent, because you’ll want them later. But you’ll take some general education or liberal arts classes, too. And while those classes may indeed be interesting, you can usually tell from the name of the book whether or not it’s something you’ll want to keep past finals week. Chemistry in Context? While I admit this was one of the more interesting science textbooks I’ve read, I really didn’t need it when I was done. It was nice to be able to just send it back, rather than trying to sell it after finals.

Again, renting is not the best practice for every single textbook you need. It’s just for the ones you’re reasonably sure you won’t need after the class is over. And for those books, renting can save you a bundle.

I’ll give you some real-life examples. Because I’m a nut, I still have a worksheet lying around from when I bought textbooks last spring:

Fundamentals of Financial Management, Concise Edition (a book I totally knew I wouldn’t want after the class was over!)
Bookstore used: $95.50
Bookmaid: $40 – $85
Chegg rental: $46.42

Bookmaid is a website specifically for my school (RIT) which allows RIT students to buy and sell books to each other. So in this case, the best action for me to take was to buy one of the used copies being sold by another student through Bookmaid. Not only was it the cheapest price, but no shipping or shipping cost! So that was an easy choice.

Another example:

Internet Marketing and e-Commerce (probably not a book I would want after the class)
Bookstore used: $107.25
Amazon.com used: $84 (with shipping)
Chegg rental: $51.61

In this case, I went with Chegg. I could have gone with the Amazon.com used price, which would have been a savings compared to the bookstore, and tried to sell the book on Bookmaid when I was done. But the next offering of that class wasn’t until spring of the next year. I didn’t want to wait a year and then try to sell the book! Chegg was the clear choice for me here.

There are other books on the worksheet, but they all demonstrate the same principle: there’s no end-all-be-all-perfect place to get all of your textbooks. Yes, you can simplify the process by getting all of your textbooks from one place but that’s going to cost you. In the case of the bookstore, it’s going to cost you a lot.

If renting some of your textbooks sounds like a good deal to you, I highly recommend Chegg. There are other textbook rental websites, but Chegg is the only one I can honestly recommend, because it’s the only one I’ve used. But having used Chegg for two years out of my college career (for some of my books), I can say that I’ve been thoroughly pleased with their prices, their customer service, and their speed in getting books to me.

And they plant a tree for every book you rent, which I think is pretty awesome. If you decide to go with Chegg, use the coupon code press09 when you check out. It’ll give you 10% off of any rental order. (Expires 12/31/2009)