<p>I'm curious. What financial advice would you give to a typical college student (only income coming from parents or a part time job)? What's your opinion on credit cards - use them or shun them? Advice on investing - how do you, personally, define "investing"? Saving?</p>
<p>Basically, how do you rest assured that your money is being taken care of (if at all) so that you can use the remaining money on guilt-free spending? I already have an opinion on this but I'm curious as to what the rest of you have in mind.</p>
<p>There’s no way to advise you on investing without knowing more personal financial figures, but I will saythis: don’t worry yourself over it. School is going to eat up a lot (if not all) of the money you would have to invest, so I wouldn’t concern yourself with it just yet. You will have many years in which you can build a porfolio of wealth.</p>
<p>Use credit cards to establish credit, but make sure you can pay them off within a month or two. It goes without saying that you should not send beyond your means.</p>
<p>Are you going to be a freshman? I thought a lot about investing money at the start of college (im going to be a Junior), but I quickly realized that it was a not realistic.</p>
<p>But most of all…enjoy yourself. Go out to parties, go exploring, meet girls (or boys)…and live your life. I made a mistake of spending the first year and a half of my college experience stuck in the library and I regret it.</p>
<p>Hope some of this was helpful. If not…i appologize in advance! :)</p>
<p>Haha, thanks for your response Livingston! I’m currently a sophomore (at Cal) this year. Whatever money I’m getting right now is from parents and I find that I end up with a lot left over after taking my fixed expenses (mostly food and rent) into account. I’m not too excited about leaving so much money in a (ridiculously) low savings accounts. The reason I’m asking these questions is because almost every college graduate I talk to tells me that they regret not saving/investing early on. Sure they’re “well off” in terms of job income, but they have no clue on handling money. And personally, I don’t like leaving things hanging like that. By the way, what do you mean when you say investing during college is “not realistic”? I have a friend at Cal who’s been successfully investing for a long, long time so I don’t see how it’s unrealistic to invest (I apologize if this comes off too rudely - just wanting more information, that’s all :)).</p>
<p>That is good to hear that you are so enthusiastic about building your finances early.</p>
<p>What I meant was it was unrealistic for me. I should have clarified.</p>
<p>Well, If you have your heart set on investing your money in something other than an interest bearing account…you have a few choices.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Invest your money in some sort of long term bond or CD. These take many years to mature.</p></li>
<li><p>Become a sort of “day trader” and invest smaller sums of money throughout the market. This would be the most fun, but alo the most time consuming.</p></li>
<li><p>Invest in or start a small business. You might be able to buy into a local business that is doing well. I have done this before with a friends pastry business and it was quite fun.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Ofcourse, there are a million different things you could do…but you will probably want to do something that is not terrible time consuming and also fun. Just some of my suggestions. But there is nothing wrong with letting it accrue interest while you think it over :)</p>
<p>Sophmore, huh? Nice! Ill see you at Haas in the Fall. Or Wharton. Im shooting for both :) How do you like it?</p>
<p>Sorry mate, I’m in engineering (I bet you weren’t expecting that)! I decided that Haas is just not right for me, but I’ll surely take a class or two to get some exposure (any suggestions?). Also, thanks for the list, I’ll keep those pointers in mind (though day trading sounds kind of stressful - engineering is pretty stressful as is :P).</p>
<p>I am refreshed to hear from someone who is not in Hass or Wharton, actually. Some diversity…finally! So how do you like it? Engineering is a fascinating topic, what type of engineer would you like to become?</p>
<p>A rather unconventional one. I chose engineering mainly because I liked it and not because I necessarily want a career in that field. My major is CES (computational engineering science) but I switched from EECS because it wasn’t flexible enough for me to take more interesting classes. Not too many people have heard about CES, but who cares as long as I like it, and what I learn and eventually do directly helps people. Not everyone is on the same boat as I am but I can understand their concern.</p>
<p>So. Why Haas?</p>
<p>By the way, whoever else is reading this thread, feel free to post your answers and opinions on the questions I posed in the first post!</p>
How do you like it?</p>