We all know that college can be expensive. With student loans, textbook fees and accommodation costs, the last thing a student wants to have to think about is spending money on a car. However, it is not always possible to ditch the car and catch public transport all the time, especially if you live in a regional or remote area. Thankfully, there are a number of ways through which a student can save money on car expenses, leaving them with less to worry about.

1. Reducing your car insurance costs.  Car insurance contributes significantly to the cost of running a car. Students, due to their youth, are usually hit with very high premiums on account of their inexperience on the road. However, there are many ways one can save on car insurance costs as a student.

Firstly, if you are a safe driver, consider raising the excess payable on your policy to reduce your premium. An excess is the fee payable to the insurance company in the event of a claim as your contribution to the repairs to your car. Most insurance companies will allow drivers to raise their excess to a higher amount to lower their premiums, although some may not. However, it is important to only take out this option if you are a safe driver, as if you make a claim on your policy the payout will be much lower in the event of an increased excess.

Secondly, choose a low-risk, unmodified car to show your insurance company that you are responsible and not a risk to insure. Modified cars usually come with higher insurance premiums attached, so it is a good idea to consider whether you really need that souped-up exhaust before getting it fitted.

Finally, stay safe on the road. There is no riskier a customer to an insurance company than a driver with a poor driving record. In addition, breaking the law in your car may invalidate your insurance policy if the insurer finds out about it in the event of a claim. For example, racing and drink driving can invalidate a policy or result in your claim being rejected.

1. Use ethanol fuel

With gas prices increasing every year, it is not surprising that biofuels have recently been embraced by the American people. Not only is ethanol fuel cheaper than regular gas, but it is also renewable, meaning that you will be doing your part to save the planet at the gas pump.

Before you go ahead and fill up your tank, however, it is important to make sure that your car is capable of running on ethanol fuel. Check your car’s manual or with your car’s manufacturer to avoid the risk of damage to the engine.

1. Get a cheaper car to run!

One very large car expense all students will eventually need to get acquainted with is servicing. Cars do not just run themselves – they need maintenance to ensure a smooth ride. However, many cars cost a lot to service. On one end of the spectrum, very old cars are more likely to break down often, and parts for these kinds of cars do not come cheaply. On the other hand, very new and expensive cars can often require expensive parts as well. Choose a reliable second-hand car to save the most money.

Ultimately, saving money on car expenses is something we would all like to do. However, if the costs just become too great, there is an easy way out – simply sell your car and take public transport anywhere. The cost of tickets on public transport is much less than what it costs to run a car.

Author Bio: Izzy Mackey works for LifeInsuranceQuotes.net a company that provides rates on car insurance for those in Florida.

This is late in the month to be doing this. Honestly I have had no time to devote to writing. I guess that is why smarter bloggers have a bunch of articles in their queue. speaking of queue, it is the longest word, and only one I can think of, that is pronounced the same after you remove the last four letters.

I also was confused about how to classify the payment of one of my stocks; that has been cleared up now. Last month I was lucky to have my largest dividend month yet. While this month has not approached that bonanza it has been one of my better months. July brought me $12.03. Not too shabby. Last month I could have missed about one hour of work.

$12.03 in July gives me $82.44 for the year, and that means my pace has increased to $141.33. My goal of $200 is still out of reach but I am getting closer. Both September and December are big months for me where my quarterly payers both pay out and I have increased my position in one stock which should increase my payments each month. this was a much better month than my first couple months but looking ahead it should actually turn out to be a stepping stone on my way to higher monthly payments from here on out.

I know that at least for me, I had a lot of trouble deciding what I should and shouldn’t bring to residence in my first year of university. There are lots of lists online and elsewhere I am sure but I think I have a different perspective on it than those writing those lists. Students will be packing up for school shortly and I want to create a comprehensive list of things I needed and others will. You might not need everything on the list and maybe you need other items but hopefully this gives you a great start to being prepared for school.

What You Need For School

• Laptop - I suppose it might not be a necessity to have a laptop in college or university, but I know that my laptop broke for about one week at school and it was by far the hardest week there. Not to mention the most boring. A computer will make your life so much easier that I am saying you shouldn’t go to school without one of your own.
• Mini Fridge - At my school we were not allowed to bring our own fridges to the dorm rooms but we could rent them. In our floor’s lounge there was a large fridge but it smelled like death and you could never be sure that if you put something appealing in there that it would still be there when you went back for it. I didn’t trust it and not many others did either. for the most part it was pretty empty. Having the convenience of drinks right beside you while you are working at your desk is great, plus being able to store food from home or leftovers. And you will need to keep your age of majority beverages cold as well.
• Shower Slippers - For these I just bought a cheap pair of Crocs. Anything that keeps your feet touching those dorm showers will work though. When you share your shower with lots of people you can’t take too many precautions.
• Laundry Basket – Another way to go is a hamper or mesh bag but you need something to transport your dirty clothes to the laundry room.
• Headphones – When you are trying to listen to music and study and your roommate barges in you will realize how important they are.
• School Supplies – This should seem obvious but you can get away with just getting whatever you usually got for high school; pen/pencils, paper, backpack, ruler, calculator, etc…
• Printer - I suggest a printer. There will be options on campus for printing but you will need to pay each time. A printer is a large upfront cost in comparison and ink is expensive, but the freedom to print what you want when you want is worth the cost. My roommate brought our printer and I paid for the ink when it needed changed. He was a music student so I did a lot more printing than him anyway.
• Whiteboard – A great way to keep deadlines in mind, or just everyday reminders.
• Air Freshener/Febreeze - Your room will stink, guaranteed. Don’t bring anyone back to a smelly room.
• Toiletries -Toothpaste, toothbrush, soap, shampoo, conditioner, deodorant. If you have been a functioning member of society you should know enough to bring these things.
• Bedding/Linens – Bed sheets, comforters, pillow cases and a couple towels for showering.
• Pillows and Foam Pad – You will need a pillow for sleeping. I shouldn’t have to tell you that. But a big surprise for me was how uncomfortable the residence mattresses are. A foam pad on top of the mattress will make all the difference in the world.
• Tissues – Always a smart thing to have on hand. The bathroom in dormitories will have paper towel so you can get by without those.
• Pot - You don’t want to be hungry after the food court and dining hall has closed and not be able to eat because you don’t have a pot.
• Stapler – gone are the days when an assignment was only one page so you didn’t need to staple it, or just going to the teacher’s desk and stapling the paper.

When I was going to school I found a whole bunch of things I didn’t need and didn’t bring a whole bunch of things I needed. Whenever I went home I brought useless things home and took useful or missing things back to school. It was definitely a process and I am probably forgetting a couple things. Comment with anything I forgot which you consider needs.

This is the second week of my blog carnival submission service trial. It is customary I link to the carnivals.

Y & T’s Weekend Ramblings at Young and Thrifty
Carnival of Fin. Camaraderie at The University of Money
Yakezie Carnival at The Ultimate Juggle
Carnival of Retirement at My Personal Finance Journey
Wealth Artisan’s FinCarn at Wealth Artison
Carnival of MoneyPros at My Family Finances

and Jeremy at Modest Money

First off let me say that I find it very annoying when people create words like “chocoholic” or “shopaholic”. What is chocohol? Shopahol? We have people who really like chocolate or shopping but do not understand word endings. With that said I have come to realize I am an internetoholic, or whatever you would call somebody addicted to the internet.

My home internet provider is in the process of switching all their services to 4G. That meant if we had stayed with the company we would have faster internet, but we would have a new data limit (my internetoholism makes that a problem) and the plan would become more expensive. customers had until July 14th to change to the new 4G plan or they would lose their service. We intended to stay with the company until that date and then get a new provider who could offer cheaper unlimited internet. However at the start of June our company’s tower went down and we lost our service. When we called to see when it would come back I was told they weren’t going to fix it because they were switching all the equipment in six weeks anyway. That is some kind of BS. So then we called up another company and to make a long story short, we were led on, thinking our installation would be a long time ago, and then we didn’t hear from them until recently, when I was told it would be installed on Tuesday.

So I have been without internet for going on seven weeks now. I never would have guessed I was so accustomed to the internet. But now I know that I just about need internet, lots of it everyday. I have a few sites I check everyday; I love Cracked, which is where I learn most of the things I know, I check SI.com daily, it is my go to site for sports, and I check all the blogs in my blogroll. In addition to those I check my email, which often is fairly important. I do all my banking online, also very important. This blog has been a bit neglected during my internetless time. And then there were a few things that are actually necessities. Course selection for the upcoming school year is entirely online and of course came about while I did not have internet. Because of that I had to wake up an hour early and bring my laptop to the coffee shop in my town before work. And not having internet has cost me money, quite a bit of money for a student working a minimum wage job like me. Without the internet I have not been able to use Swag Bucks or Superpoints, such easy money that a monkey could do it. I also have a few more ways that I make money online that I obviously can’t do with no internet.

This time without internet has been trying in its own very small way. I know it is nothing to complain about but the internet has very much become a part of a “normal” lifestyle. I survived without it but the last month and a bit would have been a lot better with internet.

The only way this can be applied to students is that I can tell you that in my opinion, if you are getting internet service while you are living on your own, spring for the unlimited service or if that is unavailable, the highest data limit. You probably do not realize how much you use internet in your free time, plus all the internet you need to use for school. Ideally you can find alternative solutions but in the case you can’t it is best to get as much internet as you can. Better to pay a little extra each month than paying overuse fees every month.

I have been included in several blog carnivals because I signed up for a free trial of Corey’s carnival submission service over at 20′s Finances. I appreciate the help Corey.

Canadian PF Happy Hour at Canadian Personal Finance
Carnival of Fin. Camaraderie at The University of Money
Carnival of MoneyPros at Portfolio Princess
Carnival of Retirement at Good Financial Cents
Totally Money Carnival at Money Reasons
Y & T’s Weekend Ramblings at Young and Thrifty
Yakezie Carnival at Tackling Our Debt

It is that time of the month. That came out wrong perhaps. I mean that I have now collected all my dividends for the month of June. And it was my best month yet.

At the start of the year (actually late January) I wrote my goals for the upcoming year. In them I stated that I wanted to make $200 from dividends this year. An unreachable goal with my very limited income and all my scholarly expenses. I am very competitive but I am okay with not meeting this goal. In spite of what that statement may imply, I am in the process of working adding stocks and ETFs that pay dividends. right now I have one mutual fund, two ETFs and two stocks. That is much more than with which I started the year.

This month was a lucky month in that two of my three quarterly payers paid their dividends this month. With the help of that fact my June dividends were $27.93. That is an awesome feeling. That alone is more than two hours of work at my current job.

June marks the halfway point of the year and so far I have $70.41. That puts me at a pace of $140.82 annually. Now that I calculate that I can see my goal is not entirely unreasonable. It will be tough but I think with another purchase of investments or two I could make it.

Passive Income Earner reported making $421.11. So he is a little bit ahead of me. But I am really proud of my almost $30 this month.

Hopefully reading this will inspire you a bit. Six months ago I only made $7.57. Now I have $20 more than that, with only more to come. That fact I find pretty persuasive. This early start should really start to reveal itself in ten years or so when my numbers are closer or maybe even greater than the current totals of Passive Income Earner. And these updates let me track that.

I am a member of the Yakezie Network, or at least a challenger. I show this with a square on the right of the home page of this website. It is a community of bloggers who help each other with all things. I joined because I thought it would boost the popularity of my blog, but that did not happen as automatically as I thought it would. Luckily in the place of traffic I found so many people willing to help me whenever I had a question, or support me whenever the occasion called for it.

Every once in a while Yakezie holds a writing contest. I know this because the current contest running is in order to help students pay for their education. What has two thumbs and needs money for education? This guy! So I wrote what I consider a very meaningful piece and I am quite proud of it. But for it to get its due and serve its purpose, I need people to vote for it in this contest.

In order to vote for me (I’m begging here), you can go to the following link:

http://yakezie.com/201798/writing-contest/definitions-of-wealth/

And read my story. It is optional that you enjoy it but I hope you do. then you must register for Yakezie as only registered members are able to vote. The registration is very short and simple. Then all you need to do is comment on my story. A comment is one vote. It also has a graded system where a comment in which you say you give my article a 3 or a 2 is better than a simple comment, which is worth 1. A 3 is worth the most so that is what would be ideal for me.

In return for your vote, I can offer the satisfaction that you are helping a student obtain his Bachelor of Science Degree. Other benefits may or may not include and are not limited to; becoming taller, a sudden boost of confidence, finding money in the pockets of your jeans, sunnier weather, fewer commercials when you watch television and better sleep. However there is the possible side effect of being so happy that grumpy people may resent you for a second or two. This shall pass once you tell them you are happy because you voted for my article and they are able to do the same.

Here is the article in case for some reason you have continued reading this instead of voting for me.

http://yakezie.com/201798/writing-contest/definitions-of-wealth/

Thank you to everyone!

I recently wrote about how I am working at getting rid of days I have to work by investing to receive dividends. But I got to thinking again about a different way to think about things. Thinking differently is the key to innovation. I am trying to go through university without taking on debt and I began to think about how incurring debt is like giving away some of your life by adding work days to your time.

The average student graduates with $25,000 (this figure is for US students, Canadians should have less). This is likely 50% or more of your first year’s salary. I don’t think anybody would want that hanging over their head, let alone somebody who won’t be making a lot nor what they expected.

I have a line of credit from TD and the interest rate is 4.5%, which is more fortunate than a lot of students out there, although not the best. While I am in school I am only required to pay the interest every month. Assuming I kept that $25,000 for my senior year that would be $1125 in interest without making a dent in the amount I owe the bank. I calculated that someone with $50,000 of after tax income takes home $192.31 every work day. So my first six days of full-time work after I graduate will simply pay the interest for the school year already completed. Then I need to keep paying interest and eventually pay off that $25,000.

If you are simply paying he minimum on the debt than more than one week of every year, or one out of every 44 days you work you reap no benefits from your labour outside of paying that interest. Being smarter than that you would try to pay it off as quickly as possible. Making $50,000 you could save one quarter of your income and pay off the principle alone in two years. Adding the interest to your payments might add another month to your efforts. So $1,000 every month you work during the most important time for you to invest your money.

Would you go to work and one day of every week ask them not to pay you? This is what that student debt would do to you. With the year of interest payments and then the 25 months of paying one quarter of your income you lose 136 days of your life by having this debt. Doesn’t seem worth it if you can avoid it.

This does not even take into account additional debt such as a car loan (unnecessary) or credit card debt (also unnecessary) or any other debt for that matter. Each dollar of debt you have adds time that you have to work to your life, essentially shortening your life with debt. You can’t literally buy time on Earth but this is as close as you will get.

So debt is actually killing you in a small way, a leech sucking the life out of you. Usually it is slow enough so you don’t notice all the damage it is doing, until you don’t have the money to go on vacation because you have to pay your student loans. Or maybe you are “lucky” and you don’t see the leech until you are 65 and working longer than all your friends and family. See that leech trying to get at you now, and keep it at bay so the debt can’t harm you.

Poor Student was featured at NerdWallet in The Carnival Of Personal Finance.

Recently I have been thinking a lot about dividends. I have just bought a stock that will pay me about $50 every year as long as I hold it (and most likely increase). I was thinking about how much I like that, how it got financial independence closer. Then I thought about how dividends get me closer to financial freedom, as replacing work days.

I have mostly seen dividends measured against the expenses the person has. So if I reached my goal of $200 in dividends this year and my expenses were $50,000 I would be covering 0.4% of my annual expenses. This is a little disheartening.

I wanted a way to make this seem better in my own I use the  mind. When I think about it I think that living on $50,000 would be more than I could need, I could live pretty well on that. There are 260 work days in a calendar year so that means someone with a $50,000 income (after tax) brings home $192.31 each day they go into work . Now my goal of $200 in dividends this year buys me one work day of freedom. In my first year investing I have replaced one work day.

And you can take it further even. This summer I am working 7:30-4. I am used to longer hours so this is a nice change. I used to work 7-6 every day. I am going to use that as the typical day. I would wake up at 5:30 and get home around 6:30. Work cost me 13 hours of every week day. I am investing money, and all my dividends are working at replacing work days. Thirteen hours of my day were not spent the way I would choose to spend my days. Thirteen hours multiplied by 260 work days means 3380 hours every year I am not in control. While my true wage would be higher, the total time (waking up, preparing, commute, lunch, etc.) I spend that revolves around employment is higher than my paid time, so my “true” wage would be $14.80/hour.

Now my $200 of dividends buys me back 13 hours and 30 minutes.

Any way you spin it, it is still 0.4% of what I need (assuming $50,000 expenses). I need 250 times that to achieve financial independence. But thinking of it in terms of replacing work days or hours makes the effort seem much more tangible.