What Square Mobile Payments Means for Students

This thing plugs into your phone, and charges credit cards. What a world we live in.

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Stop me if you've heard this before. You pay $20 to cover the pizza order for your friends. None of them have cash on them, or at least nothing smaller than a $20, so they promise to get you back. The money never comes.

College is full of moments like this. Whether it's splitting a bill, getting paid back for booze or cover at a dorm party, or buying and selling old DVD's and dorm furniture. If you're anything like me though, you hardly ever have cash on hand, and most of your friends don't either. Luckily, the days of unpaid debts are over thanks to Square.

If you haven't heard about it, Square is a mobile payment startup founded by some of the same people who brought you Twitter, and it's incredible. Simply sign up for a free account, and they'll mail you a free (!) credit card reader tha plugs into the headphone jack of your iPhone, iPad, or Android device. Once you have everything you need, simply type in what you want to charge your friend on the app, and have them swipe their credit or debit card. They even get a receipt!

Of course, there are some drawbacks. You will pay a 2.75% processing fee on all transactions, so you'll either need to eat that cost yourself or build it in to the charge, which runs the risk of pissing off your friend. In my experience the reader often takes a few swipes to work properly, but that's not really a dealbreaker. If you're concerned at all about privacy though, it's been reported that the reader can be hacked to act as a credit card skimmer, but if you're the one actually accepting the payments you won't need to worry.

Overall, the benefits far outweigh the drawbacks. I personally hope these things become as ubiquitous as cellphones, as I hate feeling like a bum when I don't have cash, probably more than I hate being saddled with a full bill by my cashless friends. This is a fantastic, free system that most college students could use on a weekly basis, and there's no good reason to delay signing up.

Broke? Hungry? Five Tips for Lowering Grocery Costs

Batch cooking is even more fun with wine. Image courtesy of Flickr user m0les. Licensed under CC BY-SA.

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If you're away from the comforting arms of a dorm meal plan, it can be hard to figure out how to eat cheaply and healthily. I learned this last week, when my diet of frozen meals managed to net me a $70 grocery bill--and that's without any meat or dairy. By changing what I was bought, I managed to supply myself with a week's worth of groceries for $40.

Follow all of the old rules: These are nothing groundbreaking, but they bear repeating--batch cooking and careful meal planning (to avoid food spoilage) will save you time and money. If you've never shopped or cooked for yourself before, familiarize yourself with how a good grocery list is assembled. Don't just go to the store and buy what looks interesting--unite your meals with common ingredients, like Laura did with chicken this summer.

Autopilot your meals: Particularly breakfast. For example, I heat up a frozen biscuit every morning. They're $5 for a bag of 20. (Check the frozen food aisles.) They don't go bad, have a low unit cost, and make it so that I don't have to buy breakfast more than once or twice a month. If you can manage to remove one meal a day from your weekly grocery haul, it saves you buckets compared to buying several boxes of cereal or cooking a different egg dish every morning.

Use budget-conscious cooking sites: Are you a math nerd? Are you broke? Then you will enjoy Budget Bytes as much as I do. The author provides PDF ingredient lists and breaks down the per-recipe and per-serving cost of each of her meals. One recipe usually provides enough food for a week's worth of dinners. Also good is Big Girls, Small Kitchen, which is targeted at 20-somethings with a limited amount of kitchen space and number of food-prep gadgets. The college-specific cooking site Collegiate Cook also wins points for photography that suggests that the food was prepared in a real human kitchen, not on a Food Network sound stage. Any site targeted at people in our age range is likely to have lower per-meal costs than something intended for middle aged people.

Limit processed foods: I have a sociology professor that likes to yell at students to "avoid the middle aisles." That's where processed food lives--it can be stuck in middle aisles because it's designed not to need to be refrigerated. In addition to being bad for you, processed foods are often much more expensive than their non-packaged counterparts. I realize that individual, microwaveable packs of edamame are cool and all, but you're in college: you quite likely have a bunch of free time and no money, so go ahead and buy a large bag of frozen or fresh edamame and siphon out individual portions yourself.

Avoid supermarkets: I'm lucky enough to live near Your DeKalb Farmer's Market, which is a truly delightful store that caters in large part to Atlanta's immigrant communities--they have all the injera a girl could dream of. The prices are much, much lower than at Kroger or Publix, and the quality is better. If you can find the part of town with the largest immigrant population, you're likely to find cheaper groceries--the Asian markets and Indo Pak groceries near Emory both have better prices than the nearby grocery stores. If you can find someone who grew up near your college, they'll likely know what part of town you should be looking in. Farmer's markets are also a good bet, but they tend to be early in the morning on weekends, so they can be inconvenient if you were out the night before.

Got your own tips for saving cash on groceries? Let us know in the comments!

Incoming Freshmen Series: How To Stop Spending Like a Freshman

Hopefully you'll have more than just $2. Photo courtesy of Molly DG. Licensed under CC BY 2.0.This is the second post of the Incoming Freshmen Series. Read our introduction and our first post on style for more information, and stay tuned this week for our upcoming posts.

If your college experience was anything like mine, it was like hitting the big time. I didn't work in high school until my senior year, and those last few months were torturous knowing college was on the horizon - especially when some of my friends were already there. So when my parents told me they'd provided a monthly allowance for me, I was pumped. Granted, I needed to pay for food, but I finally had money of my own to spend as I pleased, without someone breathing down my back.

College is a brilliant place where some bright lights never burn out - especially those of Krispy Kreme, Starbucks, and McDonald's. Not to mention those late night diner runs and bar runs. Whether you're up late studying or partying, there's always late-night pizza in the back of your mind. Food is just the beginning - not to mention costs for entertainment like sports packages, HBO, Netflix (price hikes and all), and of course those fun random road trips. College is a beautiful place, but damn, can it be expensive.

Let's not forget to mention those credit card scams and companies who live to prey on college students. It's a hard world out there for a college student trying to practice frugality, but it can be done. After the jump, some tips on keeping your hard-earned (or not-so-hard-earned) dinero in your wallet.

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Now's the time to buy student business cards

Image courtesy of Flickr user Matthew Solle. Licensed under CC BY 2.0.For those of you in the market for student business cards, this week might be the time to make a purchase. Moo is having a 30%-off sale on all of their printed goods through July 20th (that's Wednesday).  Their cards are printed on high-quality stock, the ink on it is pretty much water-proof, and there are eco-friendly options. They give you a nice box to keep the cards in. I really enjoy mine. All of these are good things! Unfortunately, the cards are pretty pricy--so a sale is a great time to go after them if you're in the market for visually interesting cards, particularly if you're like me and want to just use a pre-designed design template.

When you're picking what the put on the cards, go for something that looks reasonably professional without tying you to your current job. You just want your basic contact info: name, email address, twitter handle (maybe), phone number (use a Google Voice number), and website. If you want to get a little more specific, you can possibly put a one-word job description, like "writer" or "web designer." If you're super-fancy, stick a QR code on there that takes a visitor to your website. Aim for a card that you wouldn't be ashamed to give to an alumnus from your school.

Try not to get cutesy or put any information on the card that won't be true a year from now--if you like to change your Twitter handle a lot, then leave it off the card and link it to your website instead, and if you're about to graduate and lose your student email address, use a Gmail account instead. In general, however, you want to keep it so that your cards cast as wide a net as possible. Dynamic or specific content is what your website is for. It doesn't cost anything to change your landing page, but it's expensive to re-print business cards. With cards in hand, you should have an easier time preparing for the real world.

Additional discount: According to Brady Kent, you can get an additional 15% off if you use moo_sample_discount and are a first-time customer. Even better!

Budget Booze for Both Price and Calorie Content

Budgeting is fun! Image courtesy of Flickr user Chris Waits. Licensed under CC BY 2.0.This week on Lifehacker/Mr. Money Mustache, folks have been discussing the idea of creating a dedicated alcohol budget. The suggestion in the article breaks down to an idea that most people should be getting drunk once a week, and so should budget six units of alcohol at about $1.50 a unit, leading to a budget of about $9 a week. The six drinks can be consumed as you wish (one a day or all at once), and they roll over. Good times!

The basic principle behind the article is sound. I've started doing something similar during the summer in an effort to lose some box wine weight.* However, the amount that it takes to get drunk and the per unit price of alcohol are perhaps off, particularly since the article's directed towards the middle aged and not college folks. If you're interested in doing a similar alcohol budgeting plan, here are some ways to modify the plan for a college student.

First, figure out a realistic drink budget and how much you would like to be consuming. (A good place to start is getting pretty tipsy twice a week--adjust as needed.) The six drinks a week in the original article probably aren't going to cut it, and you may wish to spend more or less than $9 a week depending on your budget.**

Second, figure out the number of calories you would like to come from alcohol in your weekly budget. Again, this is personal preference--if you're trying to lose the freshman 15, this will change things. Divide your weekly calorie allotment from booze into the number of drinks that you've decided on. This is the number of calories you should be aiming for as a maximum per drink. Use something like this handy tool to find out what booze is in your calorie range, and pick from among that list in order to figure out what you can afford. This way you can avoid the excess spending in the original article and the extra alcohol calories that are a worry to heavy-drinking college students. Cheers!

* Don't judge me.

** That being said, if you're looking to spend less you might want to explore homebrewing. It's fun and allows you to make booze in your closet!

Guest Post: 8 Mobile Apps To Help You Save Money Anywhere

Feeling broke? Ironically, your expensive smartphone can help! Image courtesy of Flickr userDanielMoyle and licensed under CC by 2.0

Today's guest post is from our old friend, Lior Levin, a student from Tel-Aviv University, and employee in their MA in Political Science and MBA Abroad Programs. You may remember his previous guest post detailing five social sites that every student should try. Take it away, Lior.

Who doesn’t love saving money? Whether it’s due to the economy, budgeting, job loss or just wanting to save up, everyone is trying to cut costs somewhere. One of the best things about technology and smartphones in particular, are the thousands of apps out there available; there are apps for just about everything including apps to help you save money. The 8 mobile apps listed here will show you how to save money everywhere on things like gas, telephone calls, text messages, music, TV, movies and more.

Groupon 

If you’re not familiar with Groupon, it’s a great site that posts daily local deals. Each deal is only available for a certain amount of time. The catch is that in order to get the deal, that is a minimum number of people (group) that need to buy in order to get the coupon (hence the name Groupon - group coupons). You can often find savings of up to 95% and save money shopping, eating, events, entertainment and much more.

With the mobile app you can browse, purchase, and redeem Groupons right from your device. The app will search for deals in your local area (via GPS). You can also keep track of deals that you’ve purchased in the past and keep an eye on when they’ll expire.

Availability: iPhone, Android, Blackberry, Mobile Website

GasBuddy

With gas prices rising by the day, it’s definitely something we could all afford to save money on. GasBuddy helps you find the cheapest gas at stations near your current location. They have over 200 websites that are used to help find the lowest gas prices around. If you find a lower price, you can report it to them and earn points toward a grand prize giveaway.

Availability: iPhone, Android, Blackberry, Windows Mobile, Mobile Website

Read on for the other six!

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Repurpose a rubber band ball for cheap massage

Just light a couple candles and it's basically a spa. Image courtesy of Flickr user Mykl Roventine. Licensed under CC BY 2.0.

Despite summer's de-tensing properties, I've found myself pretty physically beat up recently due to making intelligent decisions like dancing until 5 in the morning. The dancing is fun, but the muscle soreness and weird tensiony shoulders the next day are less so. Unfortunately, I'm unable to afford a massage to get the muscle kinks out. However, I have found a way to bring a little bit of the massage therapist's magic to me without the cost: a rubber band ball.

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Use Air Tran’s Student Fares for Cheap Last-Minute Travel

Pack up your duffel bag: it's time to travel. Image courtesy of Flickr user Jeff Harbert. Licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

AirTranU is a fairly well-known program among students, but it’s worth revisiting during the summer months when schedules are likely to be freer than during the school year. AirTran offers $49, $69, or $99/leg standby flights for people ages 18-22 through its AirTranU program.

To use the program, students have to show up to the AirTran desk at your airport and work the flight out with an employee—so it takes longer than just buying a ticket online, and getting a seat isn’t guaranteed (AirTran recommends calling ahead at 1-800-AIRTRAN to check on availability, but my friends who use the program tend to just go and see what happens). However, if you need to book a last-minute flight home or are up for a spur-of-the-minute visit to a friend, it’s a cheap way to fly—particularly during the week, when flights aren’t as crowded.

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