College Student Gadget Guide - Top 5 Most Affordable Gadgets For Students

Young people love their gadgets. I love gadgets. The problem is that they come at a premium price, and I don’t like paying a lot of money for electronics. Parents only have so much money to buy gadgets for their kids, and college students never have any money. So, I put together a list of inexpensive gadgets for college students. The word “inexpensive” is relative, because you might not think some of these items are cheap, but they are cheap relative to their competition.

The Dell Inspiron 1420 - $749

I know that Mac Books are by far the most popular laptops among young people, but hear me out on this one. Here are some features of the Inspiron that make it worth getting while in school.

• Mac is better for images and video, but not for productivity. The Dell Pentium Core Duo processor is efficient and sips battery life.
• You can pick from a number of colors and it only weights 5.3 pounds
• At $749, it’s $300.00 less than the standard Mac Book.
• Comes with Core Duo processor, 2 GB of RAM, 250GB hard drive, wireless card, DVD writer, and built-in webcam

The Palm Centro - $99.99

The iPhone is the most popular smart phone on the market, but it’s expensive, and the plan is even more expensive. They lowered the price for the new 3G iPhone, but they increased the data plan by $10 and it doesn’t include a text messaging plan. So, if you want to save some coin, check out the functional Palm Centro.

• Full QWERTY keyboard, perfect for texting and sending email.
• Sync contacts and calendar from Microsoft Outlook.
• Touch Screen with a more slender design than the Blackberry.
• AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, and T-Mobile offer the Palm Centro at a nice price, $99.99.
• Google Maps uses triangulation to locate your approximate spot on the map, also has Telenav GPS system.
• Blazer web browser has mixed reviews, but serves its purpose.

;The Canon Pixma MX700 All-in-one - $129.99

I’ve never had a Canon printer, so if they are horrible, feel free to post a comment. I’ve heard good things about this one, and I am looking for a new all-in-one printer, so I might try this printer out. Here are the features:

• Copy, Fax, Scan, and Print. You’d be surprised at how many times you need to fax something while you’re in college.
• Costs only $129.99
• Great picture quality printing. You can hook up your digital camera straight to the printer and save money on photo developing with this printer.
• Makes copies up to 30 words per minute.
• 70% of consumers voted it a “5″ on Newegg.com

The 2nd Gen iPod Nano 4GB - $149.99

In my opinion, this is the best iPod for the value on the market. iPod got it right, other than the fact that it doesn’t have an FM tuner. I own this Nano, and it’s perfect for my needs. For a college student, it’s perfect for working out and going on road trips. The 8GB is $199.99 if you truly need that much space. I came to grips with myself that I didn’t need 60GB of music at all times, so I dumped my brick of an iPod and bought the new Nano. Apple will probably come out with a 3rd generation ipod soon, because they love rolling out new products as fast as people get accustomed to the previous one, but this nano should satisfy your gadget cravings for years to come.

The Nikon Coolpix L18 - $119.00

This is a simple little camerea, but great for taking out on campus, at the bar, or at sports events. If you’re a serious photographer, don’t bother with this camera, but it’s great for the average user at a discount price.

• $119.00 on Newegg.com
• 3″ LCD screen
• 8.0 mega pixels
• ISO 64 - 1600
• Compact, stylish design

Remember that I’m not presenting my picks for the BEST gadget of these five genres. I tried to find a decent gadget at a discount price, because at Money Smart Life we’re looking out for your bank account first. Buying a hunk of junk isn’t worth it if you get it at a discounted price either, but the research and reviews shows that these products will definitely satisfy for their price tag.

If you’re going to spend money on gadgets, you’ll have to save it somewhere else.  Learn about ideas for decorating your dorm room on a budget saving money with student discounts, and ways to have fun in college on a student budget.

In this series you can also read about a review of student health insurance options and comparing them with eHealthInsurance.  Finally, you can find the best spot to keep your hard earned money in our review of the best checking accounts for college students.

This college student guide to getting the most gadget for your money is part of the College Student Money Guide.

College Student Car Insurance - Tips on Getting the Best Rates for Students

Being young comes at a premium price when it comes to auto insurance. Insurance companies view young people under 25 as a high risk for making claims. It’s not that they hate you. They have factual statistics to back it up. Teenage and college aged individuals are the most likely age group to get into an accident. Some of it is due to inexperience driving, making poor decisions, and reckless driving. But, this doesn’t mean that every college student is a bad driver. In fact, the vast majority of you are very responsible drivers. Here’s a look at five tips to help you get better rates on your car insurance premiums.

1. Choose a higher deductible. For collision and comprehensive coverage, choose $500 or $1000 for your deductible, but make sure that you stash enough cash away in an emergency fund to cover your deductible if you do get in an accident.




2. Choose a safe car to drive. You can’t get around the fact that an insurance company will give you high rates based on your age. But, you can control what type of car you drive. Typically, a 4-door sedan with high safety ratings will yield lower premium rates than a sports car or SUV. I know, the Honda Accord doesn’t get the chicks, but the money you’ll save on insurance premiums can go towards money for dates.




3. Skip on collision coverage. Most young people drive clunkers. I drove a 1987 reddish-pink Nissan Sentra for two years. It was worth about $1,000. A friend of mine drove a $2,000 Pontiac Firebird for a year. If you have a clunker, you probably don’t need to pay for collision. Any car with a book value of less than $3,000 warrants skipping out on collision. The amount you’d spend on the premium could be saved every month and pay for another clunker.




4. Get good grades. Most auto insurance companies will give you a 10% to 15% discount on your auto insurance premium for having good grades. A 3.0 GPA or higher is usually the standard for receiving the discount.




5. Buy another policy with the same carrier. Many insurance companies will give you a discount for having multiple policies with them. I recommend coupling your auto insurance with renter’s insurance. Most college students don’t buy renter’s insurance. It will protect your personal property in an apartment from theft, vandalism, fire, water damage, and many other perils that can destroy your stuff. The best part is that you can pick up a $20,000 policy for $10 to $15 dollars a month.

Saving money is a learned habit. You’re not born with the gift of knowing how to save money. If you develop this habit throughout your college years, you will be very successful with your money. You will typically spend 10% to 15% of your monthly income on insurance premiums in your lifetime. It’s worth it to put the effort into saving money on your premiums.

Some of the earlier articles in this series cover the best checking account for college students, how you can make extra money in college, and the best student credit cards.

Stay tuned for tomorrow when we’ll cover saving money with student discounts.

These tips for saving money on auto insurance for college students is part of the College Student Money Guide.

Exchange Traded Funds Investing Strategies

In our final part of this three part series covering ETF investments, we’ll look at different strategies for investing with exchange-traded funds. Have I bored you? I hope not! Actually taking the time to learn about the hundreds of different investment products on the market is tedious, but the reward will be great. If you take the time to educate yourself about investing, budgeting, insurance, and ways to save money, you will be a wealthy person in your later years. To recap, the ETF has all of the diversification of a mutual fund, it’s sometimes cheaper than index funds, trades like a single stock, and you can buy funds that target certain sectors and/or markets.

Here are four different strategies for investing with exchange-traded funds:

The Primary Method

The primary method is the approach that the ETF would be your primary investment vehicle in your portfolio. The exchange-traded fund is designed so you can get exposure to a broad range of securities at a low expense. Instead of buying a 100 single stocks, you could buy a commodities ETF that targets the entire commodities sector. This is a risky method to only use ETFs for your primary investment strategy. it’s risky because many ETFs don’t have a track record longer than 10 years. If you want to buy and hold an ETF, it’s hard to judge its performance based on one or two years of performance.

Dollar-Cost Averaging Method

If time is on your side, let the power of compound interest take over for you with this method. Dollar-cost averaging is a great method to use for investing in ETFs, mutual funds, and bonds. The idea is that you invest a fixed amount of money at a given interval such as every month. This eliminates the need to time the market. You will buy less shares when the price is high and more shares when the price is low. Over a long period of time, the average cost that you purchased the shares will outperform a method of trying to time the market. If you want to experiment with an ETF, this is the method for you. This is the best method for those of you who don’t want investing to be your full-time job. Let the money pull automatically from your checking account and watch it grow over a long period of time. it’s a beautiful thing.

Sector Rotation

For those of you who are more active traders, this could be the method for you. If you read the Wall Street Journal religiously and keep track of market trends, then you should consider sector rotation for your exchange-traded funds. The idea for this strategy is to rotate in the ETF that targets the hottest markets and rotate out the markets that are declining. For instance, in today’s market you would want to rotate in an energy ETF and rotate out a real estate market ETF. This method is very risky. It’s a method that relies on timing the market correctly. You need to know what you’re doing if you choose this method. Although, it would be a fund strategy to experiment with using less than 10% of your investment portfolio.

Asset Allocation Method

The idea of the asset allocation method is that our investment strategy changes as we age. When you are young, you can invest aggressively with equities, but as you grow older, you want to shift your investments to more steady, income-producing investments. Using an ETF to shift your assets can save you money, because it takes less trades to do it. You can rebalance your portfolio with a few changes in the ETF’s that you invest in, rather than switching out mutual funds for bonds and dividend producing funds.

The Bottom Line

Have I convinced you to try out the exchange-traded fund? I bought my first one recently in my 401(k). Our company complained enough that there were no exchange-traded funds or index funds in our plan to choose from, so they finally granted us a few ETF options. I am eager to see how it performs. It tracks the Russell 2000 index. The bottom line is that the ETF is a great alternative investment that can easily be implemented into your portfolio to provide diversity with low costs. They offer broader exposure to markets and sectors that index funds do not track. Speak with your financial advisor or other financial professional about your options to start trading exchang-traded funds.

When you get the chance, please comment on your thoughts, experiences, and questions about the ETF.

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The Top 10 Exchange-Traded Funds

After reading my introduction to exchange-traded funds, I know you are dying with anticipation to find out the best exchange traded funds on the market. There are many quality exchange-traded funds, but first you must know the different types of funds. An ETF wears many different hats just like mutual funds. Here are the four major categories of exchange traded funds.

Index ETF

The index ETF is similar to a traditional index mutual fund. It buys company stocks or bonds that mirror a particular stock index such as the S&P 500 or the Russell 2000. According to Wikipedia, as of February of 2008, there were 415 domestic equity index ETF’s, 160 global/international equity ETF’s, and 53 bond ETF’s. This is one of the biggest categories for an ETF, and they typically carry the lowest expenses, just like index mutual funds.

Commodities ETF

This ETF invests in commodities such as precious metals, and natural resources such as oil, coal, and food. One of the first of these funds was the gold exchange-traded fund. Commodity exchange-traded funds are typically index funds that track a commodities index. Make sure you do your research on these funds, because they are not regulated by the SEC like traditional investment companies.

Actively-Managed ETF

These are the newest type of exchange-traded funds. They became available to the public in March of 2008. They have higher expenses, because there are broker fees that you will pay. The response has been minimal so far, because many investors are looking to see which funds will post the best returns. I am interested to see which of these funds emerge as the front-runner. They have the chance of boasting higher short-term returns than the index ETFs.

Now that you are familiar with the different types of exchange-traded funds, let’s take a look at the best funds on the market. There are hundreds of great ETFs on the market, but here are ten funds that shine above the rest.

Top 10 Exchange-Traded Funds ( no particular order )

1. iShares MSCI Japan Index fund: Japan’s economy is growing exponentially. This is a no-brainer.
2. Powershares FTSE RAFI Fund: The fund tracks the 1000 largest domestic companies based on the size of the firm, book value, sales and dividends, and cash flow. It’s emphasis on cash flow will help it pick winners.
3. Vanguard Total Market ETF: An anchor for your portfolio.
4. iShares Lehman Aggregate ETF: A broad fund with potential for strong, steady returns.
5. Vanguard European Stock ETF: Diversify your portfolio and take advantage of Britain’s strong currency.
6. Vanguard Growth ETF: extremely low fees and Vanguard’s stellar reputation for growth funds make this a winner for the long-term.
7. iShares Dow Jones U.S. : It tracks the Dow Jones, and the Dow has boasted 10% returns over the past 80 years.
8. Powershares Dynamic Mid-Cap Growth: This stock will give you great long-term returns once the market picks back up.
9. iShares MSCI Brazil Index: Brazil’s economy continues to grow, has a strong currency, and record-low inflation. Not to mention they have an abundance of natural resources.
   
10. Powershares WilderHill Clean Energy: I threw this one in as a wild card. Alternative energy is the most important issue of our time, so this fund could make you a millionaire if the proper technological advances are made over the next 10 years.

I picked these ETF’s based on their potential for long-term growth. Don’t take this list as gospel. it is merely my opinion, so don’t come track me down if they end up tanking. There are a ton of trendy exchange-traded funds. Energy ETFs are hot right now, but I don’t think it will last. Make sure you don’t get caught up in trendy investing, unless you have a great deal of time to invest. Now is your chance to rip me apart based on my picks. Comment below with your thoughts and questions.

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Exchange Traded Funds - An Investor’s Introductory Guide

Mutual funds are the investment vehicle of choice for retirement accounts of many Americans, but there is a new kid on the block. The Exchange Traded Fund or “ETF”, isn’t exactly new, but it has grown in popularity over the past five years with many amateur investors. So, what is it? Is it the right investment for you? Is it better than a mutual fund? I’ll be writing a three-part series covering many of the questions you might have about the exchange traded fund.

What Is An Exchange Traded Fund?

it’s just like a mutual fund, but it trades like a single stock on an exchange. Most exchange traded funds tracks an index such as the S&P 500, but they are traded in real time on an exchange throughout the day. An ETF packages a large amount of investments, and it allows you to trade it like a single company stock. ETF’s package together stocks, bonds, commodities, or a combination of all three.

The Difference Between Mutual Funds and the ETF

When you purchase a mutual fund, you are purchasing it at the net asset value of that fund at the end of the day. When you purchase an ETF, you are purchasing it at the current market price for that given moment in time. This allows you to set up limit and short orders with your broker. Philosophically, mutual funds and exchange traded funds differ in their approach. A mutual fund is born with a pile of cash and a team of analysts who pick a mix of stocks to mirror a given investment strategy. An exchange traded fund starts with an idea, to track an index, and are born from stocks instead of money. At the beginning of the year, exchange traded funds were granted the ability to be actively managed by a fund investor, but there are still very few of these funds.

The Minimum Investment

How many of you decided to buy an index fund? Did you cringe when you saw the minimum investment of $50,000? The minimum investment is usually much lower when you purchase the mutual fund in a retirement account, but it still brings some barrier to entry for those using a dollar-cost averaging method of investment. The ETF has no minimums. You can buy 1,000 shares at a time or just 1 share at a time. Just make sure that your broker doesn’t destroy you with fees.

Taxes and the ETF

They have tax advantages, but it’s complicated to explain. An ETF still incurs capital gains that you need to pay taxes on, unless you bought it in a retirement account. Mutual funds incur capital gains even without buying or selling a single share, and exchange traded funds have a similar thing happen but with a better tax advantage. I have hard time putting the concept into my own words, so here are some notes about why an ETF might pay less tax than a mutual fund from the Motley Fool:

• In general, the structure of ETFs tends to avoid the kind of outright selling that would trigger undistributed capital gains and other IRS nightmares. To understand why, think back to the ETF structure. For every ETF seller, there’s a buyer.
• On the other hand, if a flood of investors decide to dump a mutual fund, the fund may need to sell the underlying holdings in order to raise the cash to pay out, and that would bring Uncle Sam with hat in hand. ETFs may also have to drop a few schillings into the taxman’s cap, for instance, when the underlying index is changed.

Is the ETF right you?

Hopefully, I will help you figure this out over the next two parts of the series. The bottom line is that an ETF is more attractive to those who actively manage their own investments and retirement account. If you like to buy funds and let them sit and grow for the next 30 years, then a traditional no-load index fund is best for you. But, if you like the idea of shifting your investments to match the trends of the economy, then the ETF is a nice addition to your overall investment portfolio. Stay tuned for the ten best exchange traded funds and strategies for investing.

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ING Direct Orange Savings & Electric Orange Checking Accounts - Online Banking Review

A couple years ago, online savings accounts such as ING Direct became very popular. Their enticing savings rates caused many people to take their short-term savings out of traditional banks and into the internet world of banking. When my wife and I got married, we opened up an ING savings account for our emergency fund and any other short-term savings for large purchases in the future. We still have it, and it’s been a great account for us. Now, banks offering online savings account are trying out the online checking account. ING rolled out their Electric Orange checking account, but it has not received the same attention as its Orange savings account. I’ll break down the advantages and disadvantages of both accounts so you can figure out if either account is right for you.

The ING Orange Savings Account

The ING Orange Savings account would replace the dreadful savings accounts that brick-and-mortar banks offer. I always laugh when I see the 0.2% and 0.5% savings rates at Bank of America and Wachovia.

You won’t get rich from this account. You’ll use it to park cash for short-term savings such as an emergency fund or saving up for a car.


Advantages:

• The interest rate used to be 4.75% a couple years ago, but it’s still 3.00% today. This is infinitely better than the rates that traditional banks offer, unless you’re putting away a million dollars. But, you’d be an idiot to sock away a million bucks in a short-term savings account.
• You can access your money anywhere that you can find an internet connection. Let’s say you’re in France, and you need to make a money transfer, you can do it at an internet cafe.
• The transfer time is two business days. ING is quick to transfer money into your checking account.
• It’s harder to acess your money. This is an advantage and a disadvantage to an online savings account. The advantage is that it will help prevent you from making an impulse buy. If it takes you two days to access your money, it gives you more time to figure out if you should really buy the plasma TV you were looking at the other day.
• No fees and no minimums.
• An automatic savings plan to help you save on a consistent basis.
• It’s FDIC insured up to $100,000.

Disadvantages:

• It takes two days to access the money. This could pose a problem if you keep your emergency fund money in this account, and your breaks down. You won’t have immediate access to the money. The only advantage to the Paypal money market account is that you can get a debit card to access the money. If ING offered a debit card for their Orange Savings account, it’d be the best savings account on the planet!
• You can find a better interest rate.
• Keeping your money in a virtual account scares some people, because identity theft is the fast growing crime in the United States. However, ING has a very sophisticated login process. It takes much more than cracking a user name and a password to hack an ING account.

The Electric Orange Checking Account

It’s still hard for some people to dive into the world of online checking accounts. But, if you’re the ultimate techy and you like paying for everything online, the Electric Orange Checking is the account for you.

I don’t have this account, because of the reasons that I will discuss in the disadvantages section. I can’t speak from personal experience about this account, but a good friend of mine opened the account about six months ago, so I received some good information from him. Here is the table from the website showing the interest rates for the account

• $0 - $49,999: 1.75%
• $49,999 - $99,999: 3.20%
• $100,000 or more: 3.35%

Advantages:

• You earn interest on your money. There are not very many checking accounts that offer a MINIMUM of 1.75% interest.
• No fees associated with the account.
• A debit Master Card that can be used for free at over 32,000 ATMs.
• No overdraft fees. You get a line of credit hooked up to your account, and once your account dips below $0, you’ll pay a variable daily interest rate on the money that you owe. This is a huge advantage, because my wife and i have paid a few overdraft fees simply from bad accounting, rather than the lack of funds.
• Online bill pay. You can send electronic or paper checks to any individual or company.
• It’s FDIC insured up to $100,000.

Disadvantages:

• Depositing money is a pain. If you want to deposit cash into the account, you’ll still need a checking account from a traditional bank. You can set up direct deposit for your paycheck, and send in paper checks to ING, but otherwise, they haven’t figured out the cash thing.
• If you don’t live in a metropolitan area, it could be hard to find an ATM that doesn’t charge you a fee.
• Many young people seldom write paper checks, but it’s convenient when you don’t have cash and you can’t use your debit card. You would have to find an internet connection to send someone a check.

I think ING needs to figure out a way for people to deposit cash or checks into the approved ATMs. If they do this, I will definitely sign up for an account. If I’m going to make the switch, I don’t want to keep my Bank of America checking account. Hopefully, this review helps you make your decision. Money Smart Life is a big proponent of keeping an emergency fund, and the Orange Savings Account is a great option to store the money. The Electric Orange Checking account definitely has its advantages for those that never open up their checkbook and want to make the financial life paperless.

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How I Stopped The Debt Cycle In My Life

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It was March of 2002, and my mother was dropping me off at our local community college. It was that point that I realized my life had come to a low point. I had no car, no job, and I was in a ton of debt at the age of 20. I came home from an expensive Christian school where I racked up $12,000 in student loan debt and $4,000 in credit card debt in just a year and a half. I made a big mistake by picking a school that I couldn’t afford. I made a bigger mistake by signing up for a credit card at the age of 18. I had no clue how to manage money, but I stopped the bleeding. I enrolled in an affordable community college, my dad gave me an old family car for free, and I started working two jobs. But, it wasn’t until a year later that I started changing my financial habits.

I was driving around Gainesville, Florida one fall evening and I was flipping through the radio stations. I came across The Dave Ramsey show, a radio show about personal finance. Many of you are familiar with Dave Ramsey and his style of teaching. I listened to the entire three hour show that night, and I realized that I needed to drastically change the way I handle money. I was listening to various callers express their joy about getting out of debt, and I found myself wanting to get out of debt as fast as possible. I stopped the debt bleeding, but I hadn’t stopped the debt cycle. I wasn’t getting into more debt, but I also wasn’t doing anything to prevent myself from getting into more debt.

Here are a few steps that I took to stop the debt cycle.

• I cut up my credit card. It was time to get rid of the vice in my life. I relied too much on my credit card, and it was too tempting to use. I racked up $8,000 in just four years. It was a combination of horrible decisions, emergencies, and numerous small purchases that quickly added up. I put gas, food, eating out, car maintenance, and various other expenses on that card without paying it off at the end of the month. The worst charges were the expenses from a backpacking trip to Europe that I couldn’t afford. You may be responsible with your credit card, but is it really helping you to keep it? Do you think that using a credit card will help you become wealthy? Getting rid of the debt cycle means taking away the things in your life that tempt you to buy something you can’t afford.
• I built up an emergency fund. I built up a huge debt on my credit card, because i had no money saved up for emergencies. When the alternator died in my car, I charged it. When I was evicted from my apartment and lost my security deposit, I took a cash advance from my credit card to pay for another security deposit on an apartment. When i married my wife after college, we always keep at least $1,000 in a separate savings account specifically for unexpected expenses.
• I attended a public university. I left an expensive private college and transferred to the University of Florida, a Florida public school. At the private college, I was taking out $5,000 in loans per semester. At the University of Florida, all of my tuition was paid for the Bright Futures scholarship, and I received a Federal Pell Grant that went in my pocket for living expenses. It was a big financial turnaround in my life, If I would have stayed at Toccoa Falls College, I would have graduated with $40,000 in student loan debt. Instead, I am currently paying off $15,000 in student loan debt.
• The monthly budget became my best friend. I started spending my money on paper before I spent it. I paid all of my monthly expenses and set aside a specific amount for groceries, gas, entertainment, and clothing.
• I educated myself about personal finance. If your parents don’t teach you sound financial principles, no one will. High schools and colleges significantly lack the capacity and the desire to teach young people about personal finance. If you don’t understand compound interest, the stock market, budgeting, and interest rates, you’ll never learn how to make good financial decisions. The fastest growing wealth of free information about personal finance is the blogosphere. There are hundreds of great personal finance blogs out there, including Money Smart Life, dedicated to helping you learn about personal finance and make better decisions.

I’ve paid off $10,000 in debt in the past two years. My wife will start working this August, and we will continue to pay off all of our debt. We plan on being debt free in two years, and we will get the chance to call up the Dave Ramsey Show and yell at the top of our lungs, “We’re debt free!” I stopped the debt cycle in my life, and you can too. But, there must be a point in your life when you tell yourself that you are sick of being in debt. Then, you must take the specific steps necessary to break the debt cycle in your life.