his was a 2006 post from codymckibben.com, originally written for a college student audience, but the tips are really great for anyone. Enjoy!

It’s not easy being a student. Paying for tuition and books, rent, and the occasional entertainment, even if you are working, can be quite a challenge. But good news is here: you can build the skills to become wealthy while you are still a poor college student! You will need excellent financial IQ when you are the head of your household or your own business, so it’s best to develop those behaviors now. Admittedly, I was not always the most financially-intelligent student. But, since investing some time in learning a few simple “tricks” that make tracking, stretching, and keeping more of your money easier, I’d love to share some of those easy solutions with you. First, there are the “duh!” basics:

* Budget your finances! Don’t just throw away all your receipts. I know it doesn’t sound fun, but for one to three months, record each purchase you make and categorize it. Use Quicken, Microsoft Money, or paper-and-pencil. This will let you know where all your money is going, and then you can start to plan ahead and set a budget so you don’t go over. Cody’s super-easy hint: Although you have to be disciplined to do this, I use a credit card for virtually all my purchases (earn the rewards points in the meantime and pay it off at the end of each month), which makes tracking my spending a lot easier–no cash purchases to remember! You could also use a debit card. Once you have recorded what you spend, here is the easiest two-category budget plan EVER!
* Pay your bills on time! Use a calendar like Apple iCal, Outlook, or Google Calendar, to send yourself reminders a few days before your regular bills are due (rent, utilities, credit cards, etc.). Or use Quicken reminders, or check out a service like BillQ if it works for you. Paying on time is the best thing you can do to ensure you build good credit, which you will need later! Cody’s helpful hint: Most online banking services allow you to do online bill-pay and schedule payments for ANY available business day. So, take your bills as soon as you get them in the mail, go into your online banking, and set up a payment to be delivered by the due date, and then you can forget about it! This means the money is available and earns more for you as long as possible, but the bill still gets paid on time.
* If you have credit card balances, keep them on a 0% card. Mildly shady, but entirely legal. If you have debt, which many of us do, at least keep it on low-interest or zero-percent cards. Better yet, put your purchases on a rewards card! (I once got a card that gave me a free iPod Nano for transferring a $2000 balance.) There are a thousand credit cards out there with 0% introductory rates (usually for the first year), so take advantage of that and then simply transfer your balance to another one when the intro period is up. (This is not to encourage you to continue to maintain a balance though; pay off as much as you can each month until it is GONE!) Cody’s word of caution: Just be careful, read the fine print, know when the introductory rate is up, and AVOID balance transfer fees (many cards charge 3% of the transfer amount, but there are plenty you can find that have no transfer fee for new cardholders). Check out Jim Wang’s posts on 0% balance transfer offers and other credit card offers. Also see the next step for a tip on how to lower your credit card interest rate.

Now here are a few other, little-known hacks that you can use, and then laugh and taunt your friends for being stupider than you! Remember, the little things add up:

* Call your bank/credit card to get a better deal! This sounds so simple, but 99.9% of people DON’T do it! Here’s what I suggest, every time your bank charges you an overdraft fee, an international fee, or any other kind of fee, or if your credit card charges you a late fee for receiving your payment a day after the due date for instance…CALL THEM! And ask nicely. Give your defense if you have to. The worst that can happen is they’ll say no. And you’ll be no worse off than you were before placing the call. But I guarantee you, 95% of the time they will say exactly this, “Well, we normally don’t do this, but I’ll give you a one-time fee-waiver.” Remember, they want to keep you as a customer, so financial institutions are usually willing to part with 10 bucks here and there, and the majority of people won’t call them out on those fees, so they’re making plenty already. If the customer service rep denies you, just call back in a few minutes and speak to someone else! Also, here’s a fantastic guide to lowering your credit card rate with one phone call. Cody’s additional $0.02: in addition to the FreeCreditReport site they recommend, check out the Federally-mandated AnnualCreditReport.com for your free yearly report. If you pay your bills on time and you have a 700+, you have a LOT of leverage with credit card companies! (And you should look into getting some fantastic rewards cards!)
* Use coupon codes and discounts when shopping online. This one’s pretty simple, but when you shop online, especially around the holidays, try to take advantage of promotional codes and discounts. I don’t recommend going out of your way to buy the things you see coupons for (that’s why companies print coupons, don’t you know? So you will SPEND more!). But, if you already plan on getting a few items online, check a site like CurrentCodes.com to see if there are any special deals for the particular website you’re looking at purchasing from–discounts, free shipping offers, etc. This saved me about $30 on a Lost Season 2 DVD set once! That’s pretty good for a coupon.
* Open up a high-yield online savings account! This is one of the SMARTEST moves you can make! Most banks these days only offer annual percentage yields under 1% on their savings accounts, unfortunately (actually the national average right now is only 0.54%). But, there’s an easy solution that not everyone has caught onto yet. If you’re willing to do your transactions online and go without a paper statement, a high-yield online savings account is the perfect solution. There are a lot of banks doing this, but here are some of the top APY rates. All of these are FDIC insured and have zero fees, zero minimum balances:
o I use the EmigrantDirect American Dream Savings Account, which returns 5.05%
o HSBC Direct offers 5.05%. Try entering the promo code “start” and see if it gets you an opening bonus… ;)
o E*Trade Complete Savings 5.05%
o CitiBank Direct at 5.00%. You need to open an EZ online checking account along with the e-Savings to get the bank fees waived on this one.
o I also have an ING Direct Orange Savings Account, which is now up to 4.50%. If you would like, I can send you a referral and you can earn $25 for opening an account with a minimum opening balance of $250 (hey, it’s good if you want a quick 10% return!) Just email me if you’re interested (see sidebar for email).

It only takes 10 minutes to set one of these up (literally!). All you need is your personal info and your regular bank checking account info. And you’ll immediately be making 6 to 9 times the national savings average! It’s easy. Do it.

Finally, I recommend you always continue learning about financial stuff and keep up your financial intelligence. For something you can read daily, check out the master of all personal finance and entrepreneurship bloggers, Ramit Sethi, at IWillTeachYouToBeRich.com. Read his 5 Steps To Getting Rich first, and then he’ll lead you through budgeting, saving, investing, and retirement. Read my one-on-one interview with Ramit Sethi. Also check out J.D. Roth’s Get Rich Slowly.