Colleges have taken a 23 percent hit in endowments, meaning the cutbacks are transferred on to students.But with smart borrowing and scholarship sleuthing, it’s still possible to defray some of the costs.

Watch David Noonan share some tips about smart borrowing and check out Newsweek/Kaplan’s college issue this week.

I’m the kind of person that needs a little nudge to pay attention to my bank account, so I signed up for the Web site’s free application.I wanted to play around with it for a few weeks before I blogged about it, after some positive reviews from friends that have used mint’s iPhone app.

So far I’ve been pretty pleased. I like the weekly e-mails about spending, which remind me to check the site, and the tools for for staying on track. And it helps stir up those guilty feelings by serving up a little exclamation point every time you got charged an ATM fee and lets you see graphically what it means when 4 percent of your spending takes place at 7-11.

It makes following your spending trends easy and the site comes with some pretty good financial info too, though it’s a little scary to save your bank passwords online.

Of course, there are tons of budgeting programs on the market, from Quicken and Microsoft Office to the oldfashioned pen and a piece of paper.

When we’re paying with plastic and direct-depositing our checks every month, it can be hard to get a mental handle on what we’re spending. I think that’s why our budgeting is moving online too.

Lollapallooza stage at dusk/By Kellen M. Henry

If having parents in town is the best way to save money during the weekend, a friend visit might be the worst.

There’s the pressure to show them a good time and eat at fun restaurants and have frosty beers at funky bars. Plus, they’re living the vacation splurge while you’re living business as usual. Plus, they’ve probably got a little extra from the vacation piggy bank if they’re crashing on your couch instead of staying at a hotel.

Luckily, my good friend and house guest for Lollapalooza last weekend is cash conscious in addition to being charming and delightful.

Read on to see how we got through the weekend without breaking the bank:

For first-time visitors to the city, the tourist stuff is high on the list and a lot of it is free, too. My friend and I got some sun at the Lake Michigan beachfront, took a long walk down the “Magnificent Mile” and made our way down to Millenium Park to splashed around in the fountain. Later, we took in the fireworks on Navy Pier… all for free. I’ve shied away from doing touristy stuff since moving here, so it was pretty fun for me too.

On Sunday, we had pricy tickets to Lollapallooza, so we didn’t want to drop any more cash at the festival than we had to. We started the day off with a big and fairly economical brunch at Anne Sather getting enough cinnamon roll action to keep us dancing all afternoon without having to buy the expensive food in Grant Park. Water wasn’t the most expensive I’ve seen it at an event like this at $2 for a 20 oz bottle, but we decided to tote in our own liter bottles from 7-11 and refill them from the water fountains. We had a natural buzz from all the great music, so we waited until we got back to my house and picked up a 6-pack of Goose Island 312, a Chicago classic from the grocery store. The $10 we spent would have bought us each only one watery Bud Light a piece at lolla.

Meals out can be another big wallet buster, especially if you’re going to fun or trendy places. Try taking brunch out instead of going for a steak dinner. Don’t forget you can order in or cook together, too. Or, go for traditional Chicago pizza. There’s a good chance it’ll feed you for two meals.

Mind, I didn’t shell out for the $850 VIP passes, but I still cringed a little when I pushed the button. And I didn’t even get tickets for the whole weekend. The task of paying to see live music acts is, after all, becoming increasingly tricky.

If you didn’t pay to see the acts in the festival, you might be able to catch a few of them at Lolla after-shows. Some of them are still not sold out. NBC Chicago has been keeping tabs on what are shaping up to be the best after-parties. (There’s some overlap here)

As it gets closer to go-time for the after-shows, take a look on craigslist. Sometimes people will be trying to shed tickets for less than face value close to concert-time, if they’re not really hot tickets. I decided to search for Andrew Bird tickets for Schubas tonight (even though I’ll see him at the festival tomorrow) to see if there were any deals. Tickets that sold (and went fast) for $40 a piece are now going for $200 to the $400 range, but then Andrew’s a Chicago favorite.

The Decemberists pre-show tonight looks a little more reasonable, with most tickets going for close to face value at $40. Though some of the requests come with caveats, like guessing the seller’s favorite Decemberists song.

So, if you’re looking to hear some sweet songs this weekend, look to the after shows and to Craigslist. I’ll let you know how the festival goes and how much I end up shelling out for bottled water down at Grant Park.

One of my classmates did a story about first time homebuyers for Medill News Service last week and I made a flash graphic to illustrate why now’s the time to take the plunge:

Click here to see why first-time homebuyers should jump in!

My new $40 bike from Craigslist

I’m sure you’ve heard the old adage about Craigslist:

Sometimes you can find really good stuff for cheaps. And sometimes you get murdered by a hooker.

Well, readers, my luck has been the former these last few weeks. I managed to score both a replacement for my recently-stolen bicycle and an apartment to sublease in D.C. this fall.

Craigslist requires some curious strategizing. To get the best deals, you really can’t take your time and make the wise comparisons that usually go into smart buying. Rather, it’s sort of like playing Hungry Hungry Hippos. You’ve just got to clamp down wildly and try to grab the marble before the next person gets there with their pickup truck or deposit.

READ ON:

Plus, buying on Craigslist involves a delicate courtship dance of buyer and seller convincing each other that neither is a creep or scammer and that both sincerely intend to go forward with the transaction.

Since you can’t really hem and haw on the back end of the deal, do some searching up front. Read product reviews online and see if there is a certain brand that would meet your needs in particular. Check the page frequently for new ads and set up a concrete time to look at the item so you’ve got first refusal. This way, you can be ready to hand over the cash and take the item off the sellers hands right away, after a good once-over.

If you like the item you’ve gone to see, negotiate. I got the seller last week to knock $10 off the list price off my bike just by asking if he’d take less. It might not seem like much, but the money I saved covered the new rear brake installation the bike needed. This is especially true if the item has been listed a few days or is not in high demand. Lots of sellers are almost as interested in not having to store their old junk than they are in turning a huge profit.

And of course, just be smart. If you go to the meeting and something seems off, don’t feel pressured into taking the item. If you’ve scrutinized the posting and photos before you make a visit, you should have a pretty good idea of what to expect. Ask the seller why he’s getting rid of the item and take as long as you need to check it over. And of course, it never hurts to type the seller’s name into Google. You can bet they’re probably googling you too!

Photo by Kellen M. Henry

My friend Rob Story and I live in opposite-land. He’s tall and I’m short. He took serious classes for an engineering degree, while I… took wine tasting and played newspaper.

Consequently, he graduated with a master’s degree from Virginia Tech, got a job and moved to D.C. with his girlfriend Sheri. I, on the other hand, am moving to D.C. first, then graduating with my master’s degree and probably never finding a job.

I called him up for some free advice on life after school in the District of Columbia during the dog days of the financial crisis.

Have a listen:

Read the transcript below.

Rob: Hello?
Hank: Hello.
Rob: Why’s this number say “unknown?”
Hank: Because I’m calling from an unknown location in a bunker of journalism.
Rob: Really?
Hank: Are you ready to be famous on the Internet?
Rob: No. Wait a second. I’m already famous on the internet.
Hank: Why don’t you introduce yourself for the people of the Internet?
Rob: I’m Rob. I like to bike and I like to ski and occasionally I go to work.
Hank: Tell me about graduating and going out into the job market, as horrible as it was in May. You got a job pretty easily, it seemed like.
Rob: Yeah, I’m in a really small field. With ocean engineering and naval architecture, the workforce is in their 50s and 60s for the most part. So there’s this huge, top-heavy workforce of really smart people that didn’t really transfer their knowledge to anybody. So, yeah, it wasn’t too bad for me. I was just kind of pigeonholed as to where I could work. Even if it’s a private job, it’s government related, so you’re stuck in D.C.
Hank: Did the people you graduated with, did they find themselves in pretty much the same situation or were they scrambling a little bit more?
Rob: I was pretty much the only person I knew, of my group of friends, coming out. The undergrads that I knew that were coming out, they were finding jobs pretty easily, so I don’t think they had any issues. Like I said, if you’re willing to move to somewhere like D.C. or Houston or Norfolk, then it’s really not a problem finding a job.
Hank:Is that at all a function of the recession or is that pretty much just the field?
Rob: Well, actually so, I almost got a job in Boulder [Colorado] and I had an interview in Seattle [Washington] and in both cases, both companies had hiring freezes. They basically said, ‘Alright, we don’t know when our contracts are coming in. Basically, our re-contracting happens in the summer, so it’s not just that we can’t afford to hire you, we don’t want to hire you and then not have anything for you to do, literally sitting there twiddling your thumbs because we have no work for you to do.’ So, I was directly affected in that way.
Hank: So, you just made a big move to D.C. from Roanoke, Va. Has that impacted your life in any significant way as far as your finances and what you’re paying attention to?
Rob: You know, I was operating on a graduate student budget in Roanoke, so I didn’t really have that much money down there. And coming up here, yeah, it’s really expensive to live. Our rent has tripled? Yeah, I think we’ve tripled our rent. But as far as costs go, I mean, we spend a lot of money on food because food is more expensive and we spend a lot of money to live but I’m also getting paid a lot more, so it doesn’t feel like it’s been a really awful change.
Hank: Now, you’re into some pretty expensive, gear heavy sports as well. How do you balance that with your necessities and how does that play into your planning for finances?
Rob: Well, the travel part is the hard part. I basically put myself in debt buying all sorts of fun things and now I’m paying some of that off, but the issue really is saving up money to travel. You’ve kind of got to keep your eye on the goal because if you don’t continue saving, if you keep spending and spending and spending, then you realize, oh man, I’ve had this goal, but I’m not getting any closer to it. So, we’re trying to put some money away, so hopefully we can move out west and maybe I can spend a winter skiing or some such thing.
Hank: Do you think that’s a pitfall that a lot of young people make, kind of working paycheck to paycheck and not really thinking about the long term?
Rob: Not just young people. There are a lot of people living paycheck to paycheck these days because you get older and you’re like, oh man, I’m going to save money, but as you get older, you incur more costs. You have kids, you have houses, you have cars. We’re doing pretty well. We’re trying to stay budgeted and I’m trying not to buy a lot of random gear-y crap that I probably don’t need. And really, Sheri [his girlfriend] is the big financial person around here. She keeps a lot of the budget.
Hank: Do you guys have a formal budget or do you just kind of try to eyeball things?
Rob: No, Sheri just keeps a big spreadsheet and she actually keeps a formal budget month to month of what’s going out, what’s coming in and then how much. We haven’t split it down into specific costs. We just kind of keep a running tally of how much “extra” money we have. Really, we’re paying… I’m really dumping money into paying off my car and that sort of thing, and eventually, student loans are coming up here in November, so I’m really dumping money into any debt that I have to try to get it paid off within a year or two so that when I’m ready to get out of D.C., I don’t have anything looming over my head.
The issue is, if you just pay minimum credit card payments, I forget what the numbers are, but if you pay minimum payments, it’ll take you years and years to get it paid off. So, if you ever realistically want to get that kind of thing paid off, your really just have to start dumping money into those things. Finance charges will kill you and you don’t realize it because it’s just tacking on a little bit month by month, but at the end of the year you’re like, holy crap. I’ve lost so much money, you know, just straight to the bank. Right out of my pocket.
Hank: Any other thoughts about that transition from student-dom to real-world life? That’s what I’m grappling with.
Rob: Well, I’ve only been out for two months. And it helps that I really like my job. I really like what I do and I really like my boss and the people I work with, so that’s making a huge difference. You know, as a graduate student, it was: sit down and work all day on research, and now it’s sit down and work all day on a different thing. Except now I get a sweet office. Oh, and free coffee. I have a company that provides both coffee and office supplies. That’s a pretty new thing, so, that’s been the biggest thing. Coffee and office supplies. Let your readers know.
Hank: Coffee and office supplies. If you want to be an ocean engineer, you will have coffee and office supplies in Washington D.C. That sounds worth it.
Rob: Yup, indeed.

Creative Commons photo by Flickr user (nutmeg)

Hard up for cash while you’re waiting for that Google AdSence check to come? No luck getting into a medical study for topical ringworm medication?

There might be more alternatives than you think.

Wisebread has a list of Six Weird Things People Sell for Cash and weird is right.

Unfortunately, the scarcity principle comes into play here too. I would gladly sell all of my chicken poop or false teeth, if I had any to begin with.

I also don’t have any (creepy) Princess Diana dolls or simple machines I’m willing to put on the block. But as long as the “world’s oldest profession” is in a slump, why not try one of the world’s newest and dip a toe into the murky online classified pool of  Craigslist?

The breadth and affordability of stuff I can find on there  never ceases to amaze me. I’ve yet to sell anything of my own, but I got a solid deal on a bicycle a couple of months ago and I’m in the process of using it to search for an affordable sublet in D.C.

Before the Internet, how easily could you have found someone with whom you could barter an area rug for bar-tending services, or a someone to rent your collection of sombreros?

Like any good market, it’s bringing the buyers and sellers together to discover prices. And that means we all get what we want. Plus cash for our sombreros.

By Kellen M. Henry

If you find grocery shopping tedious with a car and a job, I challenge you to try it with a hand cart and student loan money guilt. By the time you throw in tax, the challenges of eating healthy and half a dozen wrinkled coupons, my bi-weekly shopping trip becomes an all-afternoon affair.

Plus, I’m trying something new– really eating healthfully on a budget. I just finished Mark Bittman’s book Food Matters, after reading his Bitten column in the New York Times for ages. I like how his cooking is chic without being snobby and simple without being, well… Food Network.

The book’s premise, culled in part from Michael Pollan, is that the American nutritional ethos is far too costly– we’ve been paying with the environment, with our health and with our wallets, too.

It’s pretty intuitive. He suggest we cut half of the meat and processed food from our diets, replacing them with fruits and vegetable, which he calls sane or “whole” foods.

No, not necessarily those Whole Foods. This is one potentially money-saving part I like. While it might be ideal that we be super-locavore-organic-obsessed shoppers, the greater message is Broccoli vs. McDonalds, not Regular Broccoli vs. Holistic Broccoli that has been read bedtime stories.

With the growth of health food grocery stores, it seems easy for the most casual shopper to make healthful grocery decisions. But if you’re paying higher prices for what you think is better quality, you owe it to yourself not to be fooled.

Take a look at the labels. Can you trust the claims that manufacturer’s are making about their products? The healthy foods industry ain’t no quaint farmers market anymore. As of 2001, sales of organic foods and beverages exceeded $9 billion, according to the USDA. Check for a USDA label certifying whether or not something is really as organic as it claims to be.

It’s the inside that counts. It’s just cheaper to buy a head of lettuce or a bundle of carrots than a big pre-packaged salad mix. Even if you’re not a chef extraordinaire, you can certainly wash and cut veggies. Plus, think of all the plastic that would be saved if we didn’t buy our pre-washed spinach in big plastic boxes. You’re just going to take it out and wash it at home, right? Right.

Go in with a plan. We’ve all heard the adage about not going grocery shopping on an empty stomach, but don’t go with an empty head, either. Wandering the grocery store picking up colorful packages will probably mean a higher bill than if you make careful lists, buy staple foods and plan meals. There may be some things you like from fancier specialty stores, but it’s probably cheeper to get the normal things at the big chain or the bodega. Price compare between chain stores, too. Sometimes things run different prices between Jewel-Osco and Dominick’s, here.

Be realistic. Sometimes it pays to buy in bulk, but only if you’re buying things that are fairly non-perishable. And know thyself. I love artichokes, but they’re a lot of work and how many times do they end up going bad in my crisper before they make it to my face? If you can work in extra trips, stock up on things that keep during bigger shopping runs and buy those fruits and veggies in smaller amounts for freshness.

Of course, there are always trade-offs. You can probably buy six pallets of Ramen noodles for one grocery cart of healthier fare, if you don’t care about taste or your blood pressure shooting up faster than the grocery bill at Dean & Deluca.

Happy shopping! And remember to bring your own bag…

By Kellen M. Henry

Where I grew up, coffee was something your mom made in the kitchen and your dad schlepped to the office in one of those green Stanley thermoses. Coffee shops were places people went if they lived in other states.

Coffee used to be utilitarian. Like buffalo plaid and canned beer, it was more demonstrative of people who got up early and punched a time card than people who exploring the depths of their own indolence and disposable income, hanging off of pleather coffee shops loveseats.

These days, even my little hometown of Princeton, W.Va. (pop. 6,347) sports a Starbucks and I’m a well-entrenched member of the latter coffee-drinking class. Since Starbucks shops are the dandelion of Chicago, I often turn to Intelligentsia Coffee, the boutiquiest of specialty coffee shops, to keep my sense of superiority well-tuned.

At about three bucks a pop for a regular drip coffee, that means I’ll spend more than $1,000 on coffee a year, not counting the days when i’m tempted by an americano, espresso or some kind of frilly croissant. I don’t want to think of how many giant oil-drum sized containers of plain old Maxwell House that could buy from the grocery store. (That’s right… you can buy coffee at the grocery store)

With people ostensibly cutting back on non-essential purchases and the warm weather making other treats more tempting, I’ve noticed that the chain coffee places are really stepping it up.  Here, McDonalds is heavily promoting its McCafe products on the CTA, as it pursues Starbucks‘ status as ringleader of the easy gourmet coffee circus. The burger joint is also slinging free mocha on Mondays until August 3.

Starbucks has taken up what I call the “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie” tactic– If they can lure you into the store, you’re going to pick up the freebie and but probably something else too. Tomorrow, July 21, they’re giving away free pastries with the purchase of a beverage from opening to 10:30 a.m. Since you’re saving on breakfast, it’s pretty tempting to order a larger coffee, right?

And then there’s the yellow receipt deal. For the summer, any morning purchase at Starbucks gets you are coupon for a Grande-sized cold drink for $2, about half off. Not only is the store getting a boost for lagging afternoon traffic, but they’re also tempting you to buy some other treats with the money you’re saving.

It’s not hard to figure out the angle they’re working here, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be advantageous to the caffeine addict too. If I can get two sizable coffees for $4.50, I’m doing better than when I’m paying $3 for one smaller beverage, a la Intelligentsia.

There’s no doubt I’ll still indulge frequently. Intelligentsia’s coffee is really delicious, its atmosphere is delightful and it’s baristas are super-humanly attractive. But before class tonight, it looks like I’m headed to Starbucks, yellow receipt in hand.