CMN Gets Even Better: a Big, Big Giveaway!
OK, readers, big announcement: The College Money Network (already established as being a great resource for us PFers) is celebrating the start of another school year by throwing its first giveaway! To sweeten the deal, we will be posting a series of articles over the next two weeks with money-saving tips that revolve around a back-to-school theme.
Here are the rules, the prizes and all the other important details:
Prizes
- 4GB iPod nano
- $50 cash
- $20 cash
- 1 year subscription to Young Money
- Copy of The 4-Hour Workweek
- $10 eBay gift certificate
How to Enter
There are multiple ways to earn entries into the Back-To-School Giveaway. Complete as many as you can to increase your chances of winning a prize!
If you are a current college student: Share your financial goal for the upcoming semester, quarter, or school year and how you will achieve it. Make the goal specific and explain the actions you will take to achieve it. This is to ensure that students are making a conscious effort to create a real financial goal, not writing something just to enter the giveaway. Here’s an example of a good entry:
- Leave a comment on this post with your response. (1 entry)
- Write a post on your own blog about your “Back To School Financial Goal” and email us to let us know. (3 entries)
If you are not a college student: Share some tips and ideas for managing your finances as a student. If you’ve already been there and done that, what is the most important financial advice you would give to college students? If you’re still in high school, share some of your current money tips.
- Leave a comment on this post with your response. (1 entry)
- Write a post on your own blog with your “Financial Advice for College Students” or “High School Money Tips” and email us to let us know. (3 entries)
Everyone may also:
- Subscribe to the College Money Network group feed. (2 entries)
- Mention the CMN network and include a link to this post on one of your favorite sites (e.g. comment on a blog, post in a forum, etc.). Email us with a link to where you mentioned it, so we can record the entry. (3 entries)
Bonus opportunities:
- Subscribe to This Writer’s Wallet via your reader or via e-mail. When you do, you’ll see the secret word. Just shoot me an e-mail to let me know what that word was!
- Visit the sites of other CMN members to learn of other opportunities.
How To Win
You may enter each way once. All valid entries will be assigned a unique number. We will use a random number generator to select the winning numbers. Odds of winning depend on the number of entries received.
All entries must be received by August 31, 2008 at 11:59 PM PST.
Winners will be notified the following week. After all the prizes have been claimed, we will release an official announcement listing the winners.
Rules and Restrictions
- All winners must be 18 years of age or older and live in the United States.
- No purchase is necessary to participate in this giveaway.
- We will choose the winners from the qualified participants. We are the sole judges of adding entries to the list. Plagiarized content, trackback from splogs, spams, non-goal oriented comments, and comments containing abusive or inappropriate languages will not be considered.
- To award the prizes, we must be able to contact you. Please leave a valid email address with your comment, or make sure we can contact you through your web site. Your contact information will not be shared with anyone else.
- For certain prizes, winners will be required to submit a physical address to ship the prize. Again, your contact information will never be shared with anyone.
- Prizes are provided as-is, and substitutions may be made at our discretion.
- Winners must reply within 1 week from the time we notify them to claim their prize. Otherwise, they forfeit their prize, and it will be awarded to an alternate.
So, really, what are you waiting for?
August 4th, 2008 at 7:11 am
I discovered your homepage by coincidence.
Very interesting posts and well written.
I will put your site on my blogroll.
August 4th, 2008 at 9:36 am
I’m trying to save $1200 this year by cutting specific categories in my theoretical budget. Electric ($100–>$75), Food ($150->$100), Gas ($50->$25).
August 4th, 2008 at 11:22 am
I’m a college student currently. I have all of the money saved up for this coming semester and the next, so any money I make is going to go to savings. I will be working part time at my current job to beef up my husband’s and I’s emergency fund. I will probably only be working once a week, so it won’t be much. I’m also going to try not to spend much money needlessly since I will have more free time to tempt me!
August 4th, 2008 at 2:28 pm
I couldn’t narrow my choice further, so you’re getting two tips/ideas for the price of one!
1. Inevitably, you will shop with your friends because you are bored and want to get off campus. You’ll end up in that store known for selling ridiculously cheap clothes and you’ll rummage through their box of whatever. You’ll pick something up saying “Ooo, it’s only X dollars! I could probably wear it for Y.”
90% of the time, however, you either wear it once and then abandon it to the back of your dresser drawer or you pull it out when you’re frantically packing at the end of the year and it still has its price tag. So do yourself a favor and put it back on your way to the checkout.
2. Don’t spend your own money if you don’t have to! I was involved with two groups in particular that taught me this: I was a resident assistant and I was on our student co-op finance board.
As an RA, I had to do a specific number of programs in my building a month. We had a budget for these programs, but often didn’t have any clue what we should do with it. Going to your RA and saying “hey, I want to do this in the hall, can you help me make it happen?” is a surefire way to make their day. Anything to avoid another year of planning Sex Pictionary.
On the finance board, we were the people to approve budgets for new student groups. Anyone who had a half-decent idea that didn’t take a ton of money and was open to the campus pretty much got approved. Getting your hands on the regulations of what the money can and cannot be used for is a must, though. The bonus? You can put “founder of such-and-such a group” on your resume when you graduate.
August 4th, 2008 at 9:07 pm
My financial goal is to keep my loans down to a minimum (< 25k) before I graduate this next spring. One way I will help accomplish this is by cooking as often as possible instead of going out.
August 4th, 2008 at 11:02 pm
[...] This Writer’s Wallet [...]
August 5th, 2008 at 6:45 pm
My goal to save up for the upcoming college year is to ride the bus to school
Even though there’s a daily fee it’s a lot cheaper than paying gas for my parent’s car lol
August 7th, 2008 at 4:07 pm
I’m currently a college student. I’ve been working all summer to save enough money to cover living expenses for the upcoming school year (books, food, clothes, etc.) I have also taken out loans in addition to my scholarship. I need to continue to work during the school year to save up more money.
August 12th, 2008 at 11:16 pm
Buy a bike and get a buss pass
August 15th, 2008 at 1:21 pm
Sign up for rewards programs for places you shop anyway or ask if a store/fast food place offers either a rewards program or frequent dining card–you can often get free items/meals or discounts just for having the card.
August 16th, 2008 at 6:00 am
[...] Network I keep telling you about, the one with the great contributors and helpful information and big, HUGE, GREAT giveaway, is consistently churning out great advice for the back-to-school crew. Here’s a round-up of [...]
August 16th, 2008 at 12:01 pm
This upcoming semester my goal is to wipe off credit card debt from one credit card. I only have $2k left on it and am selling stuff like a madman. That and working 2 jobs while taking a full load, I should be able to pull it off before the end of the semester (December).
October 2nd, 2008 at 2:43 pm
Does anyone else worry that the Nano 4 feels too light and is so thin that it will easily break ?