[There are over 100 million sites on the Internet. 100 million! You might think you know about all the important ones (CollegeCandy, Gmail, Google, Facebook…), but there are thousands of other sweet sites out there (like Foodily, Cramster and DropBox) and more showing up every day! We get it – it’s not easy or fun sifting through the crap and porn to find those gems, so we’re gonna bring the gems to you. Just sit back, kick up those feet and allow us to introduce you to the diamonds in the internet rough.]

Does this situation sound familiar to you? Your BFF asks you if want to go out to dinner with her, and you’re about to tell her yes, when you decide to check your bank statement quickly online before you answer — and discover you don’t have anywhere close to enough for a night out. You tell her thanks, but you have to skip it this time… then immediately start scanning job listings on Craigslist and rifling though your closet for things you can sell on Ebay to get some extra cash.

Even if you think you’re pretty careful with your spending, it’s easy to spend a lot more on infrequent and/or small purchases like that daily coffee, shopping the day you get your paycheck, or nights at the bar (even $1 pints can add up). If you don’t count every purchase and check your bank account on a regular basis, you’ll just end up in situations like the one described above over and over.

Mint makes keeping track of your finances easy, so you don’t find yourself selling back books you still need just so you can buy dinner. Mint pulls together all your financial information, including checking and savings accounts, credit cards, and loans, and organizes it for you all in one place. You can easily check your balance and so much more in just a few clicks.

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Let’s be honest for a moment here: as college females, we aren’t so good at managing our money. Sure, we’d like to be…until we walk past Anthropologie and have to have every dress in the window and those adorable throw pillows for our bedrooms.

The truth is, money management and financial mumbo jumbo is boring and spending all that hard earned money is fun! Who wants boring when we can have this?

But it doesn’t have to be that way, which I learned after reading So Many Shoes, So Little Money: A Girl’s Guide to Finance. Lisa Serwin, a girly girl to her core, breaks all that budget business down in a way that is easy to understand and, even more importantly, easy to incorporate (realistically!) into the college girl’s life. Serwin doesn’t tell us to eat ramen and wear our leftovers from middle school; she explains how to save and how to spend in a way that won’t send us back to our childhood bedrooms when the money (inevitably) runs out.

Naturally, I needed her to set my budget to talk to her. And I did! Here is a bit about my new financial hero and a lot of useful information that all of us can benefit from!

5 Questions We Ask Everyone:

1. What’s your most hysterical/ridiculous college memory?
That’s fit for print? I accidentally locked myself in a second floor bathroom during a fraternity party.  The door handle broke off, and no one heard my pounding. (The one and only time in history there wasn’t a line for a ladies room!) I climbed out the bathroom window onto the roof – high heels and all, shimmied down a tree, and walked back in through the front door. However, apparently everyone had been watching my descent through the window.  When I walked back in I was greeted with cat calls and applause.

2. What are the five things you can’t live without?
In no particular order:
Great shoes
Chocolate
My family and friends
Books
A good night’s sleep (otherwise I’m really cranky) Read More »