Imagine combining the joys of Aladdin’s ‘Whole New World’ with the hedonism of Huxley’s ‘Brave New World‘, and you’ll be feeling pretty good about your post-college-in-my-own-apartment-sweet-life.

Well, not so fast: before you start buying cool things like brand new wine glasses and Franzia, follow these basic financial rules:

Make a Budget

First of all, if you own your own jet or flying car, stop reading this column immediately and buy me something awesome (like a flying car). If you are, however, with the rest of us, you might want to consider making a budget: a list of all planned expenses and revenues. First, put a set amount of your salary into a savings account (the ‘rainy day’ fund) that’s working towards saving six months of salary in case of emergencies or other mishaps. After you’ve set aside that amount, you can then allocate the rest of your total net income in a variety of ways. Remember, these are guidelines, not rules; the point is to make a plan and stick to it! Read More »

I know I’m worth it, but is my degree? College is numbingly expensive — I’m not even a senior and I’m already 50k in the hole. All this just so I can (probably) land a meager entry – level job when I graduate with my liberal arts degree. Yeah, you need to give a little to get a little, but I’ve lost count over how many times I’ve woken up in the middle of the night, drenched in sweat, worrying about my loans.

Well, good news! Apparently, the value of a liberal arts degree is up. The average grad’s salary rounds to about $33,000 a year. That’s almost enough to live in New York City…

The situation is better for those with more mechanical minds (and degrees). Chemical engineering majors earn about $60,000 out of school, and computer science majors aren’t far behind.

And, of course, there’s my brother the petroleum engineer who, at 23, is earning more in a year than I will probably earn in my life. There may be blood in oil, but there is also money. Lots of money.

I rue the day I end up living in his basement. Read More »

Getting a debit card might be the worst thing that’s ever happened to me; compiled with the internet, the two opened Pandora’s Box, rowed me across the River Styx and into Dante’s Inferno.

My parents were always adamant about me not having a credit card and I actually agreed with them. It would just be too dangerous. But the debit card still enables me (and I wouldn’t hesitate to say it encourages me) to online shop unabashedly. Or at least until the honey pot runs dry.

In today’s New York Times, there was an interesting article about unintentionally buying/signing up for things online and then being charged for them for months, even years, without noticing. While this specifc problem might be contained to a specific generation (cough, your parents, cough), online shopping can be a different kind of issue when you’re just too good at the internet, like me.

Or so I thought. Ebay, I have found, is the greatest evil on the internet. I find one million things I want, usually designer and usually from China, and somehow I can justify paying ridiculous sums of money for them because they are still cheaper than they would be off-the-rack. Read More »