Smart Shopper: Personal Finance Advisor

Everyone knows it’s easy for women to get free drinks, but why can’t men get in on the fun? Here we’ll take a look at some of the most creative ways guys can score a free drink. From charming to dastardly, these aren’t your typical schemes.

1. Proposition bets: Make friendly alcohol wagers with friends and strangers on silly bar bets that they think they can win, but really can’t. These fun cons offer a great way to trick people into buying you a free drink.
2. Pretend to be gay: For most straight men, this takes a bit of desperation, but it works. Of course, if you’re a gay man, you surely already know this trick. Gay bar or not, drop subtle clues to make men think you may be interested, and you just might find one who wants to buy you a drink. Of course, you’ll have to be careful to avoid making him think he’ll actually get something for it.
3. Freeload: If you’re a cheap bastard, this one’s for you. Go to the bar with friends that you don’t really care for, but who love to buy a round. Hang out while the booze is flowing, but move on to your next conquest before it’s your turn to reciprocate.
4. Bet games: If you’re good at it, you can con drinks out of anyone by winning at a game of pool or darts. If you want to take the hustle a step further, pretend to be a horrible player, then up your game for the money shot. Just don’t be surprised when your opponent calls you on it, and be ready to drink and run.
5. Say it’s your birthday: Tell everyone it’s your birthday, bachelor party, or other special occasion, and you’re sure to get plenty of drinks bought in your honor. Of course, you should be prepared to show ID should you decide to go the birthday route. You’ll get bonus points for bar hopping.
6. Bring your hot friends: Even if you’re not a hot girl, you can score free drinks like one just for bringing them along. Come with a small group of girls, and when they get a round, you just might get a drink, too.
7. Wear a kilt to ladies night: Take advantage of “skirt nights” by wearing the most manly of skirts-the kilt. Although it’s not likely you’ll actually be mistaken for a woman, most bartenders will be amused enough to throw a freebie your way.
8. Be a VIP: Sneak into the VIP section, and you’ll probably get access to free drinks. To do this, you can schmooze with mangement, real VIPs, or just bribe the doorman.
9. Play designated driver: Most bars will let designated drivers drink for free all night, so order yourself a non-alcoholic drink that resembles a drink that contains alcohol. Once you’ve got the drink “accidentally” get it bumped by a stranger. If you target the right stranger, you’ll get a free replacement, with alcohol this time.
10. Pretend you’re with the band: Find a bar or club that hosts bands from out of town, and pretend to be part of a visiting band to take advantage of their drink tickets. To do this, you’ll have to get there very early, and of course be gone by the time the actual band shows up. This works even better if you’ve got a guitar case or other band paraphernalia.

The days of making a living online by putting up a content site and slapping Adsense ads alongside it are fast approaching their end. At the same time, however, affiliate sites are growing quickly because for the advertisers the pay per lead model provides them with no real risk.

For publishers and webmasters that have traditionally operated in providing content or more traditional advertising, trying to get started in the world of affiliate marketing can seem overwhelming. Once you actually get the chance to look through the actual tools that you’ll need to run an affiliate site, however, you’ll see that it’s fairly straightforward. To help you break things down, we’ve compiled a list of the 75+ free online tools you’ll need to get your own affiliate site off the ground. Because we have experience in credit cards, we focused on that, but pretty much any affiliate vertical is going to use most of the same tools. So feel free to bookmark the site, and as we get suggestions we’ll go ahead and add / subtract and otherwise update this list so that it can serve as a resource for newbie affiliate marketers going forward.

So good luck and feel free to add in your own suggestions into the comments.

Credit Card Affiliate Programs

The first step to establishing a credit card affiliate site is developing and understanding the affiliate relationship. You’ll need to create accounts with some or all of the following providers and dig through the cards they offer to decide which to list on your site.

1. NCS Reporting: Along with CardOffers, NCS is the first stop when integrating affiliate credit card sales into your site. Although they still don’t offer an automated database solution to rival CardOffers, if you’ve got the time to go manual, NCS is a great way to go simply because they offer so many credit cards.
2. CardOffers: With CardOffers, you’ll get content through feeds that are matched to your site’s layout, so from a maintenance perspective using their database connection is much better than NCS’ solution. This should probably be your first stop when setting up a credit card site, and only after you’re making money should you decide to do somehting more manual.
3. Performics: While it doesn’t offer the breadth of credit card providers that NCS and CardOffers do, Performics will help you tap into some niche providers for which there is less competition online, which means you can rank faster and make cash faster.
4. Commission Junction: Although it doesn’t offer any credit card providers, CJ is still useful because it offers such a wide array of affiliate providers some of which can be useful to monetize non-converting traffic.
5. Card Commission: Card Commission will create card offers that look just like your existing site, and they’ll even keep the descriptions up to date.
6. Make Money With Credit Cards: This niche program has grown quickly of late, though by comparison it is still really small. It features a turnkey solution to get great payouts on more than 100 credit cards.
7. WealthyAffiliate: Wealthy Affiliate offers a site builder, action plans, tutorials, research tools, and much more.
8. Credit-Land: Using this program, you’ll get financial content, templates, and some optimization. I personally have never used this program, but as far as I can tell it doesn’t offer anything particularly noteworthy.
9. Commission Soup: This performance-based program offers a great way to get connected with some niche merchants.
10. siteMighty: The guys at SiteMighty use templates to create a credit card affiliate site in minutes. You just populate the site they create for you with content and get it to rank well in search engines. In exchange for them building your site, you put up their credit card offers, which of course they take a cut of. Not a terrible solution for a first timer to get their feet wet, but I’d really recommend doing this on your own, it really isn’t that hard.
11. SiteBuildIt: If you’re too lazy to build and promote your own site, you can virtually automate the whole thing with SiteBuildIt. On second thought, if you’re so lazy that you’re even considering using this program, just quit reading, because you aren’t going to be successful as a credit card affiliate anyway. This does take some real work after all.

Conversion Optimization

If you’ve got visitors, but not sales, take a look at these tools and resources to improve your conversion rates.

12. How Do I Improve My Web Site Conversion Rate: Check out this series to learn how you can make visitors convert better.
13. 25 Ways to Increase Your Online Conversion Rate: Follow these tips to get your visitors to take action.
14. Web Stats Motherload: 100 Resources, Case Studies and Tools to Analyze Your Traffic and Improve Conversions: Here you’ll find all sorts of handy resources for optimizing your site’s conversions.
15. Conversion Rate Calculator: Figure out what your conversion rate is, and even run scenarios to see how changes with affect your conversion rates.
16. Understand Visitor Patterns to Maximize Sales: Check out your statistics to learn how to better optimize your site for affiliate conversions.
17. Google Website Optimizer: Use this tool from Google to find out what parts of your page converts the best.
18. Five Keys to Improving Web Site Conversions: Check out this article to learn how you can step up your conversions.
19. Turning Browsers Into Buyers: This article offers a look at how some sites have improved their conversions.
20. UserVue: Use this service to actively watch as users visit your site, and see what changes you need to make.
21. Google Analytics: Keep up with where your visitors are coming from and what they’re doing once they land on your site. Good stats are the key to good conversions.
22. How One Word or Even One Letter Can Boost Conversion Rates By Over 400%: Read this article to learn how small tweaks can bring big conversion success.

Buying a Domain or Site

If you’re in the market for a domain or even an existing site, you’ll find these articles and marketplaces useful.

23. Afternic: Find premium domains on this marketplace.
24. How to Negotiate Domain Name Prices: With this guide, you’ll be able to get a great deal on a domain.
25. Search Engine Forums: Get domain advice or buy a site with this forum.
26. Web Site Valuation Calculator: Get a ballpark figure on a website with this valuation tool.
27. Negotiate Like a Pro: Check out this guide to learn how to successfully negotiate a domain sale.
28. Web Hosting Talk: Here you can give offers for domain names.
29. dnScoop: This forum is home to a marketplace, advice, resources, and more.
30. Negotiating a Deal: Learm how to negotiate a good price on a domain name.
31. DigitalPoint: On this forum, you can check out current sites for sale.
32. Website Value 101: How to Appraise a Website: Figure out how much you should pay for a domain with this site.
33. v7 Network: Find loads of domains for sale on this forum.

Link Building

With these guides, you’ll learn how to create successful link building campaigns.

34. 131 (Legitimate) Link Building Strategies: Learn about loads of ways to build links with this article.
35. 101 Link Building Tips to Market Your Website: In this authoritative guide, you’ll learn the good and the bad of building links.
36. The Art and Science of an Effective Link Building Campaign: Learn about link building ethics, tips, and more in this guide.
37. The Professional’s Guide to Link Building: This e-book covers more than 50 different link building strategies.
38. The Art of Advanced Link Building: Learn how to build strong link building campaigns and more with this guide.
39. 10 Tips for Training a Link Developer: This article runs down the basics of link development.
40. Link Building 101: This post offers lots of advice, resources, and more for link building.
41. Link Building Guide: This simple article outlines 5 essential steps for link building.
42. The Golden Rules of Link Building: Danny Sullivan runs down a few important rules for link building.
43. 5 Link Building Strategies That Work: Learn how to write content that attracts high quality links.

Keyword Targeting

Get the most out of your advertising dollars and link building efforts with these tools designed to help you find the best keywords for your site.

44. Overture: The old standard, Overture will provide you with a list of keywords to bid on and to target for link building. Unfortunately the tool rarely works anymore, and even when it does the information is outdated, so just assume you’ll need some of these other tools instead.
45. Google AdWords Keyword Suggestion Tool: Figuring out keywords is as easy as plugging in a URL with this tool. And since Overture never works, this is a great and reliable option.
46. Google Webmaster Tools: If you make the mistake of thinking that using a keyword suggestion tool is enough, you’re missing out on a lot of internal keyword targeting. Use this tool to find out what you’re ranking for, what keywords are bringing visitors that convert, and what terms you should target.
47. Keyword Research & Suggestion Tools: Here you’ll find a number of tools that will help you target keywords.
48. WordTracker: WordTracker will help you figure out what words people use and how popular they are.
49. Keyword Discovery: Find out which search phrases people are using, and learn how to drive traffic to your site with this tool.
50. Wordze: With this tool, you can generate large keyword lists.
51. The Keyword Tool: This tool from SEO Book will make it easy to determine which keywords you should be targeting.
52. Microsoft Keyword Forecast: Predict what’s going to be big on Microsoft with this tool.
53. NicheBot: Research multiple keyword sources at once with this research service.

PPC Campaigns

Here you’ll find PPC programs and advice for taking your PPC campaigns to the next level.

54. Yahoo! Publisher Network: With Yahoo’s PPC program, you can purchase links that will drive traffic to your site.
55. How to Optimize Landing Page in PPC Advertising for Affiliate Marketing Entrepreneurs: Learn best practices, tips, and more ways to turn PPC visitors into buyers.
56. Create New Pages for PPC Search Landing Pages: Learn why it’s important to create specific landing pages for PPC.
57. Google Adwords: Use Google Adwords for targeted PPC ads.
58. AdWords Accelerator: Use AdWords Accelerator to automate your market research and scope out your competitors.
59. “Keep it Simple, Stupid” Applies to Your Landing Pages, Too: Don’t give your visitor too many choices-make it clear for better conversions.
60. Pay Per Click Calc: With this calculator, you can determine how much revenue you’re generating from PPC campaigns.
61. Four Hot PPC Landing Page Tips for Sizzling Site Conversions: Learn what users want, and what you should do to create landing pages that convert.
62. Clicksor: Use Clicksor for relevant ads on content-rich sites.
63. Accurate Monitor for Search Engines: Monitor the position of your site on major search engines with this tool.
64. Microsoft adCenter: On Microsoft adCenter, you’ll be able to get pay per click advertising that easily fits your budget.

Inspiration

Look to these sites as models for your own success.

65. Your Credit Network: One of the things that makes this site great is its clear call to action.
66. CreditCards.com: CreditCards.com has a great domain name, conversion features, and more.
67. BradsDeals: This site is successful because it offers personalization and follows demographics carefully.
68. Business Credit Cards: Business Credit Cards offers one of the best credit and finance blogs on the web, so it’s ripe for link baiting and link building.
69. MyPoints: MyPoints has found success by constantly evaluating ad effectiveness and optimizing relationships.
70. CardOffers: This review site has loads of incoming links, plus revenue-generating links right on the front page.
71. Ebates: Ebates wisely uses an affiliate program to manage relationships with more than 1,200 advertisers.
72. Bankrate: Bankrate has established itself as an authority site, offering lots of resources for consumers.
73. Your Credit Advisor: This site has a simple interface, so it’s easy for visitors to convert.
74. CreditMe: CreditMe has resources and subscription incentives to keep visitors coming back.

Other

Check out these tools and resources for even more assistance with building your credit card affiliate site.

75. XSitePro: This site building software was designed with Internet marketers in mind.
76. Web Merge: Create loads of credit card pages quickly with this template tool.
77. iBusinessPromoter: This software makes SEO easy, offering optimization, tracking, and more.
78. Data Cleaner: Clean up your merchant’s HTML, special characters, and more with this app.
79. Rev Trends: View all of your merchant data together, get reports, and track your merchants with this tool.

Despite what some software manufacturers might want you to believe, staying on top of your finances doesn’t have to cost a lot. In fact, it doesn’t have to cost you a dime. And with these free and easy tools, you can manage your finances right from the comfort of your Internet browser.

Finance Managers

These tools look at the big picture, offering you a way to take control of your entire financial picture.

1. Mint: See where your money goes with this automated online money manager.
2. Wesabe: Join this social finance community to track your money and goals with a bit of help from your peers.
3. ClearCheckbook: Stay on top of your spending, bank account, and more with ClearCheckbook.
4. MoneyTrackin: With this accounting tool, you can track your money, get tips, and more.
5. NetWorthIQ: Find out how your financial status stacks up against your peers with this social finance manager.

Taxes

Taxes may not be fun to do, but they’ll be easy with these tools.

6. H&R Block Deduction Finder: Use this tool to identiy all of the deductions you can make on your tax return.
7. TaxACT: This free tool will help you file a simple tax return.
8. EFTPS: With this tax tool, you can make free estimated tax payments.
9. H&R Block Tax Estimator: Answer simple questions about your life and income, and you’ll be able to estimate your taxes.

Savings & Investment

These tools will help you manage and discover the best ways to make your money grow.

10. Savings Calculator: Find out how long it will take you to reach your savings goal with this calculator.
11. The Prioritizer: Use CNN Money’s tool to rank your financial goals.
12. Prosper: Using Prosper, you can give or get loans with other people.
13. Tuition Savings Calculator: Find out how much you’ll have to save to go to college using this calculator.
14. Investment Spreadsheet: Find out what your financial crossover point is with this spreadsheet.
15. Millionaire Calculator: See when your nest egg will hit a million using this calculator.
16. Zopa: Another social credit site, Zopa makes it fun and easy to get or loan money directly with peers.
17. Retirement Planner: Use this calculator to figure out just how much you’ll need to save for retirement.

Credit & Debt

18. Accelerated Debt Payoff Calculator: See what will happen if you make accelerated payments.
19. Debt Reduction Planner: Find out how long it will take you to pay off your credit card debt with this calculator.
20. Debt Consolidation Calculator: This calculator will help you decide if a debt consolidation loan is right for you.
21. Loan Comparison Calculator: Use this calculator to compare up to three different loans side by side.
22. Mortgage Calculator: Find out how much you’ll pay per month on your mortgage with this calculator that includes property tax, insuance, and appraised value.
23. Alternative Payment Frequencies: Find out how your loan will change with different payment frequencies.
24. Credit Assessment Calculator: Get a broad look at your credit situation with this calculator.

Group Money

Stay on top of shared expenses using these group money tools.

25. Billshare: Figure out how to split bills fairly on shared expenses with Billshare.
26. Buxfer: Manage group expenses with SMS and more using Buxfer.
27. iOWEYOU: Share expenses, get reports, and more with iOWEYOU.
28. BillMonk: BillMonk will help you remember borrowed money, split expenses, and track debts.

Income

These tools will help you grow your income and put it to work.

29. PayScale: Find out if you’re being underpaid with this salary tool.
30. Stay-at-Home Calculator: Consider whether or not it makes financial sense for one parent to stay at home using this calculator.
31. Missing Money: Find unclaimed funds with this money search.
32. Salary.com: Compare your salary to others in your area to see how you stack up and get ammunition for your raise request.
33. Second Rotation: Get rid of old gadgets by selling them with Second Rotation.
34. Cost-of-Living Calculator: Compare the cost of living in different US cities with this calculator.

Expenses

From budgeting to bills, these tools make staying on top of your expenses easier than ever.

35. billQ: Track your bills and get reminders with billQ.
36. Budginator: Prioritize your bills, food, entertainment, and more, and this tool will suggest how much you should pay for each.
37. Equipment Buy vs. Lease: Find our if an outright purchase is right for you or not with this calculator.
38. Xpenser: With Xpenser, you can track your spending from nearly anywhere with SMS, IM, voice or email inputs.
39. Escrow: Use this tool to avoid scams when dealing with timed payments.
40. Edmund’s True Cost to Own Calculator: Use factors like gas, repairs, and depreciation to find out exactly how much your car costs you.
41. WhatBills?: Stay on top of your bills using this cool service.
42. Home Energy Analyzer: Find out if you’re paying too much for energy, and learn what you can do about it with this quiz.
43. PayPal: With this online payment system, you can pay for purchases, bills, and more.

Bargain Hunting

Use these tools to save money and find the best deals out there.

44. MapQuest Gas Prices: MapQuest will help you find cheap gas, and even lets you look for alternative fuels.
45. Rentometer: Compare your rent prices with others in your area using Rentometer.
46. Cellfire: Get coupons on your mobile phone with this handy tool.
47. WhiteFence: With WhiteFence’s service, you can compare utility providers head-to-head.
48. PriceProtectr: Take advantage of price protection policies with this handy tool that tracks these purchases for you.
49. Priceheat: Compare Amazon prices with this bookmarklet.
50. MyRatePlan: Compare your rate plan with other carriers to find out if you’re getting the best deal or not.
51. Frucall: With Frucall, you can compare prices right from your cell phone, available via call, SMS, or mobile web.

Other

Here you’ll find even more useful online money tools.

52. ATM Locator: Find an ATM anywhere in the world with this mapping tool.
53. InstaCalc: This online calculator offers calculations, sharing, and pre-loaded calculators.
54. StuffSafe: Create an online inventory of your valuable possessions in case of theft or disaster.
55. Payjr: Use this chore and allowance system to help give your kids a financial education.
56. XE: Use this exchange rate calculator to plan vacations, investment and m

Although Digg gets the bulk of social media attention, del.icio.us is a powerful tool that’s not to be overlooked. It’s not quite as big and overpopulated, so del.icio.us offers nearly a perfect combination of easy entry and gameability. Here we’ll discuss a number of strategies you can use to dominate del.icio.us and see a massive influx of traffic and revenue.

1. Control the first bookmarking: If you’ve established a rapport with popular users, call in a favor and ask them if they’d be willing to submit a particularly important piece for you. If your work is submitted under their name, it’s much more likely to get heavily bookmarked. In addition, a popular user is likely to know the sorts of titles that are most likely to succeed on Del.icio.us. And since the first bookmarking normally controls the article title on Del.icio.us, by having them submit on your behalf you’re getting free titling advice.
2. Let the popular page dictate you: Don’t waste your time writing about stuff that may or may not get popular. Check out the popular page and the tag cloud to figure out what you should write about.
3. Tag liberally: Bookmark your article with popular tags, even if they’re only marginally relevant to your article. Many del.icio.us users have favorite tags that they bookmark blindly, and you can benefit from this.
4. Linkbait: For content that bookmarks well, your focus should be all about linkbaiting. Create content and titles that have a hook like resources, a news scoop, or some sort of important giveaway, and then deliver on it.
5. Develop a bookmarking circle: Build a network of 10 or so friends that you can count on to bookmark your stories. These can be friends you already know, or just others you pick up along the way. SEO forums and AIM chats are great places to pick up voting friends.
6. Locate popular users: Beyond regular friends, you’ve got to seek out the cool kids. Keep an eye on the front page to locate potential friends whose bookmarks spark others to follow suit. Although the “power user” doesn’t exist on Del.icio.us to the same degree it does on Digg or Reddit, there are still users who have a large following. Google their username to find their email or AIM contact info and make friends.
7. Submit top stories from other sites: Your bookmarks shouldn’t all be your own work. In fact, it’s a good idea to build your reputation by submitting stories that are proven to be popular elsewhere. Browse Digg, Reddit, and other social media sites for content.
8. Find a niche: By posting content in tags that aren’t wildly overpopulated but still popular (look for second tier terms on the popular cloud to find these terms), it’s easier to get traffic, and even better, targeted visitors that are more likely to bring conversions.
9. Email your post to other bloggers: Seek out other bloggers in your niche and ask them to take a look at your post. Whether they bookmark it for later, or pick it up and share it with their readers, you’re golden either way.
10. Take your ads down…for a day: Del.icio.us users aren’t crazy about ads, but you’ll be getting related traffic for a long time even after you’re not popular on del.icio.us anymore. So stay ad-free to get popular, but put them right back up once you get there.
11. Hire strangers to bookmark you: There are loads of forums where you can find people who are willing to do bookmark trades for free or for hire. DigitalPoint’s Traffic and Freebies forums are two that seem to work well.
12. Reciprocate: Find pages that link to your site, and bookmark them if they have relevant content. When they do well, so do you.
13. Use commonly-searched terms: When titling your piece, or even just your submission, use terms that are popular on search engines. It’s helpful to use terms that are popular on your site’s own internal search engine as well, which will send you more qualified visitors.
14. Get popular on a smaller site: Work to get popular on a niche social media site, and you’ll inevitably get a del.icio.us boost from the clickthroughs. You can prod things along by providing a link that makes it easy to bookmark your story.
15. Link to revenue-producing pages: Instead of serving up ads that will turn del.icio.us users off, you can embed links to the pages in your site that help you earn revenue, like affiliate reviews and product pages. This way, you can still enjoy a revenue spike without earning annoyance from the community.
16. Change your titles: If your existing title isn’t very bookmark-worthy, change your submission title to something else that’s likely to get more attention. As in, if you’re linking to a book that’s about SEO, but the term linkbait happens to be more popular, give your title a facelift with the more popular term, if only for del.icio.us. As we’ve mentioned, you can check out the popular page and the tag cloud for inspiration.
17. Be ready for the traffic: Although del.icio.us isn’t going to send you Digg-size traffic, there’s always a chance that getting popular on the site will give you an overload of traffic and kill your server. Obviously, that’s not a good thing, because in the end you’ll lose traffic and revenue.
18. Edit tags en masse according to popularity: If you’ve discovered that your once-hot tag has lost its charm, use Scripted Re-Mark to change all of your associated bookmarks to something better.
19. Use catchy titles: Some titles just beg to be bookmarked, like “[Blank] Little Known Ways to [blank]”, and “What Everybody Ought to Know About [blank].” You can find these templates and more at Copyblogger. Often, you’ll get bookmarked even when someone hasn’t read your entire story.
20. Make friendly URLs: If one page can by accessed via multiple URLs, you need to consolidate, or your bookmarks may get split up. Use redirects to keep this from happening.

Dwindling federal and state financial aid, shrinking endowments, and less fundraising are forcing many colleges to raise tuition and cut back on scholarships, loans, and grants, leaving graduates with skyrocketing debt as they join the ranks of the working class in the real world. To deal with this increasing debt, graduates and future graduates will have to use their creative problem solving skills learned in school to find new ways to pay down the cost of their degrees. Here are 10 creative ways to minimize costs and to pay for college with your money or, even better, with other people’s money:

1. Federal Student Aid: The Federal Government’s financial aid for higher education may be shrinking, but there is still plenty of money out there and you only have to fill out one form to be eligible. The F.A.F.S.A. (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) is available online and can be the answer to most of your funding needs. There is grant and scholarship money available as well as low interest loans for students of all backgrounds. This should be your first step in planning how to pay for your education.
2. Private Scholarships: Whether through your school’s merit based scholarship programs or through your community, there is plenty of money out there for those willing to pursue it. Scholarships through your school will be larger, but more competitive, while local scholarships are generally smaller, but easier to win. Research scholarships online, in your local newspapers, with your high school guidance counselor or through your school’s financial aid offices. Be assertive, the money is there for the taking!
3. Employer Tuition Reimbursement: Many companies (like AT&T and FedEx) now offer tuition payment and reimbursement programs. Hey, if you’re slaving away years of your life, you might as well get something more than minimum wage right? Just be sure to read the fine print and know what you’re committing to.
4. Earn College Credit in High School: Whether taking advantage or your high school’s Advance Placement programs or taking classes at the local community college, earning credits while still in high school is a great way to minimize tuition costs.
5. Co-Op Programs: Many schools offer Co-Op programs that require full-time employment as part of the curriculum. In these programs, students generally work full-time for a semester or two at real world jobs (usually paid) that allow them to gain real experience and contacts and also to earn money to help pay down costs while still in school.
6. Transfer Up: Many larger colleges and universities have good relationships with nearby community colleges that allow cheaper credits to transfer easily and fully from the community college to the larger college or university. This is a great way for you to minimize costs while excelling at a less competitive school, but ultimately earning your degree from the more prestigious institution.
7. Go Where They Want You: There are only so many seats at the top universities and colleges, and more importantly only so much scholarship money. So, to help reduce total tuition costs, go to a school that is willing to fight to educate you – fight for you with scholarship money. Excel where you are wanted and you will not only come out at the top of your class, but also with a much smaller debt load (if any).
8. Federal Work Study Program: The program provides jobs for students with financial need and encourages students to do community service and work related to their studies to help pay for school. If you qualify for FWS aid, your total Work-Study award depends on your level of need, the total FWS money that your school has and your application date. Check with your schools financial aid office to find out more about work study programs.
9. Military Service: The U.S. Armed Forces offer several programs that provide students with money to pay for education. Students have the option to serve first and go to school later or go to school first and serve later. Those who serve first can receive up to $50,000 toward school expenses for a tour of active duty. Those who serve in the Reserves can receive up to $24,000 for the one weekend a month, two weeks a year commitment.
10. Loan Forgiveness: The Federal Government has programs that help students reduce or in some cases cancel debt for community and public service work after school, such as service in AmeriCorps, the Peace Corps, Teach For America and other groups. Many states have similar programs.

And if all of these options don’t work for you, you can always just beg, borrow and steal enough money to cover your seven-figure education debt. Or you can wait for that rich old aunt to bequeath your inheritance to you to fund your education.

We’ve all heard the warnings. Everywhere we turn, we’re cautioned to guard our personal information to protect our identities and our good credit. Yet, according to the nonprofit Identity Theft Resource Center, 10 million people each year—that’s 19 people each minute!—become victims of identity theft.

Loss due to identity theft was estimated at $56.6 billion in 2005. That doesn’t include the time spent by victims of ID theft to reclaim their identities and get their credit records back in good standing—estimated at an average 330 hours per victim over a period of months or even years. And many victims report that even after all that work, they are still trying to get negative information removed from their credit reports.

Identity theft is a crime with serious consequences, and it’s clear that the thieves are the bad guys. But every day, criminals find free access to the personal information of people who wouldn’t dream of leaving their homes unlocked or leaving the keys in their cars. So how do people leave themselves open to preventable crimes like identity theft?
Here are 11 of the most frequent ways good, intelligent—and sometimes careless—people become victims of identity theft. If you recognize your own behavior in this list, you may be well on your way to joining their ranks.

1. It’s actually safer to order online! Don’t call that order in.

Contrary to the belief that although ordering online is more convenient, a computer can be hacked and your credit card information can be stolen. Better to call the order in? NO WAY. Most internet transactions are secured transmissions, it is impossible for a hacker to get your card number while its transmitting. When and if companies store your card information, the scramble and encrypt the number, so if their servers are hacked, the numbers would be useless to any would be criminals.

Ordering by calling the 1-800 number, however, poses a whole new risk. Your credit card number is actually seen by a human being. When you order online no employees actually see your credit card number because it’s process automatically. But when you call your order in, you actually have to give your credit card number to a human employee for them to enter in the system. I know of a least one instance in my own company, in which an employee was terminated for taking a credit card number that someone called in and paying her cable bill with it.

2. Shred all Important Documents

Most people don’t realize how easy it is to get account numbers by going through some one’s trash. All it takes is one old statement to get an account number and BAM! The next thing you know, you have thousands racked up in online purchases.
Bonus tip: Most banks now allow you to stop sending paper statements to your house. Take advantage of this; its much more secure to check your statement online.

3. Never give out your 3 digit security code over the phone

There is a new scam going around where criminals already have your credit card number. The tricksters then call you posing as the credit card company, claiming there has been a security breach on your account number. Then they ask you to verify your 3 digit security code found on the back of the card. DON’T FALL FOR THIS ONE. A credit card company should never call you and ask you for personal information.

Your Social Security number is obviously another piece of sensitive data you should protect. It says right on the card, “not to be used for identification purposes”. You should never be asked for your social security number unless its for tax purposes or for credit purposes. Don’t be afraid to ask why someone is asking your for your social security number, or refuse to give it to them.

4. Don’t email any passwords, or credit card numbers

Most email isn’t secured, and anybody on your network can read what you transmit through instant message or emails unless they are encrypted. Be very careful on unsecured wireless networks, anybody could be reading your transmissions. Here’s a tip: if you use Gmail, bookmark this link: https://mail.google.com/mail/ . The “s” in front of “http” means its secured.

5. Avoid Phishing Scams

Be very wary of supposed emails from Ebay, Paypal, and banks. The scam works by copying well known website login pages. The thieves then send you an email asking you to login for one reason or another, when you go the website you give your username and password. The criminals record your login information and use it to login to the real site and rob you blind.

Always look at the URL in the address of bar of the page where you are. All fake login pages have URL that is different than the real site. For instance, you may receive an email that says its from EBay, and asks you to login to look at a possible theft incident. So you click on the link, the address shown in the address bar should read: http://signin.ebay.com. But instead it could read http://signin.ebay1.ru or something similar. This is how you can tell whether or not you are being phished. DON’T SIGN IN!

6. When purchasing online look for the Hacker Safe and BBB logos.

Scan Alert is the company that provides the Hacker Safe logo. Scan Alert scans their client’s websites daily and makes sure there are no security vulnerabilities on the sites.

Also, look for the Better Business Bureau logo on websites. This generally means that the site is fairly trustworthy. Also, before making purchases check for complaints about the company in question on the BBB’s website. This small step can save you a lot of trouble.

7. Check your credit history frequently

This includes credit card statements and bank statements. If you don’t check them on are a regular basis, you could be getting conned and not even know it. In fact, most people don’t know they’ve been scammed until they go into a store and their credit card is maxed out. By then it may be two late to dispute any charges.

You are entitled to one free credit report per year from the three major credit bureaus. Take advantage of this to make sure there is no funny business going on behind your back. Even if you haven’t been defrauded, there could be other things on your credit report that you had no idea existed. To do a self-credit analysis, visit freecreditreport.com.

8. The American Express Blue is actually the most secure credit card on the market.
The American Express Blue has a “smart chip” as well as a magnetic stripe on the back. Although smart chip technology hasn’t been adopted widely in the states, its very popular in Europe.

With a smart card reader you can “insert Blue into the Reader, enter a personal identification number (PIN), and use the online wallet to shop. AmEx promotes the card on its website with, ‘In the future, your Smart Card Reader will also allow you to load up Blue’s Smart Chip with helpful offers and tools — special savings and utilities that we are custom-developing right now.’ The card, the reader, and the online wallet are all about providing a unique service to the customer..” (Fool.com)

Find out more about the American Express Blue card rates and features.

9. Cross out blank lines on all credit card receipts.

Make sure you don’t leave any blank lines on credit card receipts at restaurants. This is an easy one to forget, but any blank line could be filled in with an amount later by an employee of the establishment. Also, always take your copy of the receipt to compare later to your credit card statement.

10. Don’t use your check card online.

This is the most important tip. I’ve personally been ripped off by this. I ordered something online with my check card, but the item never came. I tried to dispute the charges with my bank, but since the money comes directly out of your checking account, you can’t recover the amount.

It’s much safer to use a regular old credit card. That way if a problem does arise with a site, you can dispute the charges and recover the full amount. Look for cards with 0 theft liability, so you don’t have to pay anything if this happens.

Small business credit cards are credit instruments that cater specifically to the needs of small businesses. They are like your normal credit card except for some changes in interest rates and features which are optimized for use by small businesses. They are very useful for small businesses that desire to streamline their finances and access extra credit.

The numbers of small businesses that use these cards are ever-growing. A recent report shows that 66% of small businesses use these cards for purchasing and financing. Forty percent of this number use their exclusively use credit cards for their payments. But why should a business apply for one? Are there any benefits that merit application for such a card? There are many advantages. Some of them will be outlined below.

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Millions of people use credit cards all around the world. A huge chunk of those users made mistakes when dealing with their credit cards. The consequence of the errors is costly.

A lot end up in debt and most of the time these are the people who rant about the credit card being the devil. But fact of the matter is, this is not the case. When used properly, credit cards are very good financial tools.

Credit cards are not necessarily just for people who have large sums of money to use. There are some cards even for the financially challenged, and these are called the: “Bad Credit Cards.”

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When people started using plastics as their primary source of financial disbursements when shopping, they did not yet realize its greatest potential until today.

It is only now that consumers learned how to treat credit cards with utmost care and concern as these could be one way to their success or failure.

One good example is the chase.com site. It primarily provides all the credit card requirements of every consumer. What’s more they offer online services wherein their credit card holders can take advantage of digital services and wireless transactions through the site and through their chase credit cards.

The chase.com credit cards offer a variety of credit cards that will suit the customer’s specific credit needs. Chase.com credit card comes in a wide array of general purpose cards, rebate cards, entertainment cards, travel cards, and auto & gas cards.� Chase.com credit cards also include retail cards, student cards, and college and university alumni cards, cards to support organizations, military cards, sports cards, and business cards.

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