Student Loan Blog : money

Win $2,000 for a Homepage Design in the NextStudent Design Contest

Student Loan Girl — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 09:35:00 GMT

Besides aiming to bring you the latest news in education and education legislation, as well as everything you need to know about financial aid, student loans, and paying for college, we here on the NextStudent Web Marketing team pride ourselves on our Web presence and on staying ahead of the trends in online marketing.

But we know that every once in a while, we’re not as ahead as we’d like to be.

We also know that we can’t do everything all by ourselves; the best results come from collaborative work and from drawing on the talents of our community members.

That’s why we’re opening up the NextStudent Website Design Contest to you.

Our website is in need of a face lift, and we want you to help.

Flex Your Design Muscles, Get Famous and Win Cash

Do you want to see your one-of-a-kind creativity, slick layouts, and design ingenuity on display on a high-traffic, top-ranked professional website?

Whether you’re just trying your hand at the website design thing, wanting to launch your Web design studio with a bang, or looking to win accolades for your already-established professional design business, the NextStudent Design Contest could be your chance to get your homepage design in front of hundreds of thousands of people.

And $2,000 cash isn’t a bad incentive either.

How to Enter

First, make sure you’ve read all the Rules & Regulations on our NextStudent Design Contest website.

Submit your design(s) by 11:59 p.m. on March 13, 2008, according to the required specifications in the contest Rules & Regs.

Encourage all your friends and family to vote for their favorite design at the NextStudent Design Contest website.

If your design is voted as one of the top five designs, you’ll be asked to resubmit it in an EPS, PSD, or PNG format within 72 hours after the close of voting on March 14, 2008.

By April 1, 2008, NextStudent will choose the winning design based on the design's showing in the popular vote, its performance in multivariate tests conducted via the Google Website Optimizer, and its appeal to NextStudent’s Web Marketing team, Art Department, and CEO.

Collect your $2,000 if your design is chosen as the winner, see a feature article about you on the NextStudent.com homepage, and possibly receive a link to your personal or business website.

Get your entries in as early as possible because the longer they’re up, the more exposure you’ll get.

And make sure to check back here on the NextStudent Student Loan Blog for contest updates and an announcement of the Grand Prize winner!

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Malls and Retail Stores a No-Go for Depressed Shoppers

Student Loan Girl — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 06:33:00 GMT

Signs of depression:

Loss of appetite
Loss of interest in daily activities
Loss of energy
Hopelessness
Self-loathing

Recommendations for treatment:

Don’t go shopping.

Primed for Sadness, People Spend More

A recent research experiment shows that people who exhibit signs of depression tend to be more willing to cough up the dough, according to a TIME Magazine article by Barbara Kiviat (“Depressed? Don’t Go to the Mall,” Feb. 8, 2008).

Researchers from Carnegie Mellon University, Harvard, Stanford, and the University of Pittsburgh split up their experiment participants into two groups: one that watched a sad video clip involving the death of a boy’s mentor and one that watched an emotionally-neutral video clip about the Great Barrier Reef.

The two groups were then asked how much of the $10 they were getting paid for the experiment they would be willing to pay for a water bottle. Participants in the sad video group were willing to spend about four times more than those in the Great Barrier Reef video group ($2 on average, compared to 50 cents).

Researchers say the results from their experiment indicate that people who are unhappy tend to overcompensate by buying new things.

“Feeling blue causes people to have a devalued sense of self, so spending more money on a new object — which people may identify, in a way, as an extension of themselves — starts to undo that deflation,” Kiviat writes.

This “emotional hunger,” as the researchers call it, may also contribute to other acquisitive behaviors, like looking for a new relationship or trading big on the stock market.

Shift Gears and Step Outside Yourself

The study’s findings, the researchers say, hinge on self-focus: When researchers looked at how much the participants were dwelling on themselves, they found that those who were sad but not self-focused didn’t spend as much.

Cynthia Cryder, a Carnegie Mellon doctoral candidate and co-author of the study, says that spending is a common way for people to try to breathe value into their lives, but that there are alternatives for cheering yourself up besides doling out cash.

“If you’re sad, maybe you should seek out something other than shopping. A new book to read, a new friendship. Something that’s novel and attractive to fill the need you’re seeking to fill,” Cryder told TIME.

Or, she added, break the cycle of self-focus by shifting your mindset outward and thinking about other people.

“You could try to think about others by rehearsing a series of sentences that involve others as the subject,” she said.

Or try calling a friend, Kiviat offers, “and instead of suggesting a trip to the mall, ask how her day is.”

5 Ways to Get Happy Without Spending

Next time you come down with a case of the blues, instead of throwing the credit cards in your wallet and speeding off to the mall, try some of these activities instead, that cost nothing and feel great.

Go for a walk. Sometimes just getting some fresh air and experiencing a natural environment can boost your mood. And exercise produces endorphins, which serve as natural uppers. Plan your route to go through your neighborhood or a nearby park to reduce your chances of coming across a spending opportunity.

Volunteer. As Cryder points out, shifting your thoughts from yourself to someone else can do wonders for your mood and self-esteem. Instead of buying another pair of shoes you don’t need, more downloads for your iPod, or the latest Xbox game, donate your time to someone really in need.

Get rid of clutter. Sifting through old belongings you’ve outgrown or no longer need can help you appreciate all the things you have in your life. You might even discover items you forgot you had, turning a tedious task into a home shopping spree.

Trade with friends. Gather up a group of friends and swap your give-away clothing, CDs, or anything else. You’re killing three birds with one stone: socializing, shopping, and saving.

Plant a garden. Taking responsibility for something living can feel extremely rewarding and uplifting. Gardening not only provides you with a daily activity to keep your hands — and mind — busy, but it’s good for you. The American Horticultural Therapy Association says gardens have healing capabilities, improving health and well-being.

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Not Just Your Virtual Diary Anymore, Blogging Is Big Business

Student Loan Girl — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 23:23:00 GMT

A decade ago, blogging was a way for anyone with a computer to get a high from posting their personal ramblings to the Web and sharing their now-published thoughts with the online world.

Narcissistic? Maybe. Therapeutic? Definitely. Profitable? Questionable.

But not anymore.

Thanks to our obsession with the Internet and our undying need for ever-more information at our fingertips, blogging has evolved into a powerful and profitable business venture that almost anyone can do.

Big-Buck Bloggers

Take Zach Brooks, for example. This Manhattanite has turned his love affair with greasy food into Midtownlunch.com, a blog devoted to spotlighting cheap eateries in New York for nearly 2,000 daily readers.

The website, which focuses on restaurants where you can get lunch for under $10, can sometimes net Brooks $1,000 a month, writes Associated Press reporter Candace Choi (“Casual Blogging Not Just Lunch Money Now,” Dec. 26, 2007).

Then there’s Samuel Chi, who started BCSGuru.com “as a way to demystify the convoluted universe of college football rankings for fellow fans,” Choi writes. This season, Chi, a former sports journalist with a background in statistics, earned about $8,000 from his blog.

With the help of PayPerPost, BlogAds, Google’s AdSense, and similar programs that help advertisers place ads on large and small sites, bloggers, who write on everything from the latest tech gadgets to politics to the celebrity train wreck of the day, can earn money based on their site’s popularity — the more people who click on the ads on their site, the more money they make.

Turn Your Blog into a Cash Cow

Write about your obsessions, make the most of your advertisers, and you may never again have to hawk your clothes or sell your plasma to get that extra cash.

Last year, total online ad revenue was nearly $20 billion, so there’s plenty of money to go around.

The Washington Post suggests a few different ways to get your share as a blogger:

Let online ad programs work for you. Sell ad space on your blog, and you can get paid each time someone clicks on your ads.

Take control of your ad sales. Not a fan of pay-per-click ads? Use BlogAds. Join its database of advertisers — free of charge — and set your own ad prices. Companies then find you and purchase ad space for a set period of time. You keep 70 percent of your add fees and turn over 30 percent to BlogAds.

Be the middleman. Join a company’s affiliate program: Post an ad on your blog that links to their site, and every time one of your readers clicks on the ad, goes to the company’s site, and the visit results in a purchase, you’ll receive a small commission. You can earn as much as 10 percent per referral sale from businesses like Amazon, eBay, and Match.com. Use affiliate marketing networks like LinkShare or Commission Junction to browse hundreds of companies with affiliate programs.

Get your fans involved. Give your loyal and dedicated readers an opportunity to show their support. Post a donation button from online payment services like PayPal or the Amazon Honor System, and set yourself up to receive monetary donations.

Sell blog-branded gear. If asking for a handout isn’t your thing, slap your company logo on T-shirts, coffee mugs or caps and create your own online store. CafePress offers you more than 50 products to choose from.

What Are You Waiting For? Express Yourself.

Know the best places to find a bargain? The best sports bars to watch a game? How to make the most out of your college loans?

Launch a blog. It’s so easy you’ll wonder why you didn’t do it before.

Just go to any popular blog platform site, like WordPress, Blogger, MySpace or Weebly, and create your blog for free. And let your love of all things you make the extra cash for you.

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Library Book Past Due: Loan Denied

Student Loan Girl — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 23:00:00 GMT

Chances are you have overdue library books laying around in your dorm room or apartment. Maybe the book you checked out six months ago has become a part of your décor—a handy paperweight on your desk or an unconventional coaster on your coffee table.

You’ve thought to yourself, no biggie, right? Not quite. You might want to dust off the CD’s, DVD’s and other library materials you have and drop them off. Return them before the fines you’ve racked up get turned over to a collection agency.

Turns out, more and more libraries think their missing property and your laid-back attitude about it are quite a big deal. And they’re hitting you where it hurts the most, your wallet.

If you’re not careful that overdue book could prevent you from getting a loan for a car or a house.

Libraries Collecting on Overdue Fines with Big Help

Many libraries have teamed up with Unique Management Services, Inc., a collection agency that specializes in recovering library books and late fees.

The company based in Jeffersonville, Indiana, tracks down late accounts for more than 850 clients (libraries of all sizes) in the United States, England, Canada and Australia. Its goal is to shock library abusers—most of whom are average, well-meaning people—into action, Kenes Bowling, the company’s manager for customer development, tells The New York Times.

The debt collector’s website states it send letters that gently nudge people into returning items that rightfully belong to the library and the people it serves.

New York Times reporters Anne Barnard and Jo Craven McGinty write that included in one of the company’s standard letters is language like: “Once reported, this adverse information can stay on your record for seven years!” The letter goes on to warn that car dealers, department stores and banks may learn of the library users’ misdeeds. “Why allow this to happen?”

The company typically sends out two letters and follows up with a phone call to your home. It claims phone calls improve results as much as 30 percent over letters alone.

The Moral: Be a Good Patron

With such verbiage, it’s hard not to see that your local library means business.

It’s not that libraries want to be seen as bullies. But when you consider that in a little over a decade, Unique Management Services has managed to retrieve $5.8 million for the New York Public Library System alone, you can see why libraries are turning to debt collection agencies like UMS for help.

Libraries want to penalize people who believe items can be checked out to infinity and beyond and those who simply want to sell them or keep items for their personal collections.

If you’re reported for owing a library fine, you could see your credit rating drop by 100 points or more, Craig Watts a spokesperson for Fair Isaac, the company that scores your credit history, tells CNN.com.

So don’t wait to be tattled on. Just take your library items back and pay up before you pay too much.

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