College Being

I hate budgets. As easy as it is to shop online nowadays, one of the toughest things to do is to stay on budget. It seems however that at times budgets are a necessary tool to help us from spending too much money. Here are some ways you can budget that I have had success with:

The Old Fashioned Way

That’s right, bust out that pencil, paper, and calculator. Write down everything you can remember that you spend money on and try to estimate how much you really need each month. A more effective way to do this is to calculate how much you estimate you are going to spend each year on each category and divide by 12. This is better because it takes into account holidays, birthdays, and other events that do not necessarily occur every month. Think about it for a bit and try to think of everything. Looking at recent credit card statements may help you tremendously so start there if you are having some problems. You can always come back and rebudget if you miss something.

Excel Your Budget

Excel (or if you’re poor: OpenOffice.org Spreadsheet) is one of my favorite tools. I use it for just about everything — from tallying how much running I do each day to organizing my recipes. It is also a great tool to use for budgeting. I just organize all my expenses and list things as categories, amount spent, location/store, etc. It is a great way to organize what you are spending money on especially if you have multiple credit cards or use a lot of cash (just remember to keep receipts or you will forget what you have been spending money on). Once you have organized you expenses take advantage of the nice graphing functions so you can visually see how much money you are spending on each category.

Free Online Tools

Just a few days ago Intuit released their online Quicken version for free. Click to continue reading…

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Here are some smart shortcuts to use in your Firefox to save you some time. Some of them take a little getting used to, but it will seriously make you twice as productive at being unproductive by browsing the web. I have bolded the shortcuts I find most useful.

ctrl+t : new tab

middle mouse button : new tab if mouse is over a link

ctrl+w : close tab

ctrl+tab : next tab

ctrl+page down : next tab

ctrl+page up : previous tab

alt+num (1, 2, 3, …) : go to tab

ctrl+shift+t : open recently closed tabs

ctrl+r : refresh tab content

ctrl+shift+r : force-refresh tab content

ctrl+u : view tab source

alt+left arrow : back

alt+right arrow : forward

alt+home : home

ctrl+l : select address bar

F6 : select address bar

ctrl+k : select search bar

ctrl+k+down arrow : toggle search engine down

ctrl+k+up arrow : toggle search engine up

Also, if you are extra handy with that mouse, you can try the Mouse Gestures Redox plugin.

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In continuation to our Are You Voting? and our Don’t Vote! post here is another for those of you that want to make a difference. I received the following email from a strange email address, but the information is still valid. Register and get your absentee ballots now:

Last Chance to Register and Vote!

In most states (including MA) today (Monday) is the last opportunity to register and vote.

If you are from a key swing state in the upcoming presidential election, you are in a privileged position to affect the outcome (assuming you are a US citizen age 18 or over). Please consider using your special status to vote in your home state, where it will count most. If you have already registered in Massachusetts (or elsewhere) that is OK, you can still register and vote absentee in your home state, so long as it is still your permanent residence (e.g., your parents live there). Of course you must only vote in one or the other.

Here is all you need to do to vote absentee in another state: Just download the voter registration and absentee ballot request forms by going to this page http://votebackhome.com/swingstates/ and clicking on your state. Then fill out the two forms (voter registration and absentee ballot request), and mail them together, enclosing a copy of your drivers license or non-drivers state ID (with your home address on it). On the forms, use your residence address in your homestate that corresponds to your state ID. Give your BU address only as a mailing address on the absentee ballot request. Remove the cover page and send the two forms and a copy of your ID to the clerk’s address for your county. If you don’t know your county, look it up at http://quickfacts.census.gov/cgi-bin/qfd/lookup If you are already registered, just send in the absentee ballot request, which does not need a copy of ID. If you have any special situation, find complete information at http://longdistancevoter.org

Hurry: this material must be postmarked by Monday October 6.

Do it now! It really is simple.

Note from the editor: Not all registration dates and absentee ballot application dates are October 6th, but many states are not far off so get off your ass and send that one-page piece of paper!

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