Frugal in the Fruitlands

Great news! Ten (Other) Ways to Make Your College Education Pay Dividends appeared in Festival of Frugality #160, hosted at FIRE Finance.

Two other posts I noted from this edition included:

• Don’t Go to a Private University at Blueprint for Financial Prosperity. I seem to really enjoy arguing on Jim’s Devil’s Advocate posts. In this one I point out that the effective cost of a private college education, after financial aid is accounted for, can quite often be less expensive than a public college education, especially for low income families.
• Benjamin of Trees Full of Money writes about My Inexpensive Do-It-Yourself Geothermal Cooling System. Even though this isn’t a system I can implement in my own house, this article impressed me. It’s a novel topic that I haven’t seen addressed in any Festival of Frugality, and the author gives concrete advice that you can put to work today. All around, a rare find.

I’ve also entered Gender and Finance: How Much Do Your Spend on Hygiene? in a carnival, but that won’t be out for a few more days. I am hoping to get more exposure for that article so I can reap a greater “sample size” before posting the results.

I am heading off on vacation tomorrow morning, so in the meantime I present my own responses to the questions I ask in that post:

What is your gender? Female
What is your occupation and level of responsibility? I’m a research analyst for a market research firm. I have no employees for whom I’m personally responsible, but I do answer directly to one of the senior VPs.
About how much have you spent on clothing for yourself in the past six months? I bought about $80 worth of bras from Macy’s, a $45 shirt from Land’s End, a $20 dress from Target, and a $17 sweater from Target. Total: $162.
How often do you get your hair cut? How much does it cost each time? Approximately once every three months (sometimes more frequently; sometimes less) at $46 each time.
What products do you use on your hair (shampoo, conditioner, sprays, gels, mousse, etc)? How much does each one cost? Matt and I share bottles of Suave Daily Clarifying shampoo, $3.49 on drugstore.com. I also use V05 Detangle and Shine spray; $3.99 a bottle from walgreens.com.
Describe your morning routine on a work day (or a day where you have to “dress up,” if you’re not currently employed). Wake up, take a shower (involves shampooing, shaving, and using a scrub on my face), spray conditioner in hair, put contacts in, (optionally) style/blow-dry hair (it seems to look the same no matter what I do), brush teeth, put on perfumes, deodorant, get dressed.
If you have a similar category to “clothing/beauty/hygiene” in your budget, tell me your monthly expenditure for just you. Over the past five months, approximately $69 per month of our spending has belonged to this category. At least half of that is mine, if not much more.

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Millionaire Mommy Next Door just featured an article on Why Women Need Money More Than Men. Her reasoning is that “having a child is now the single best indicator of financial collapse,” and that women, as the bearers of children, still bear an unfair portion of responsibility for child-rearing – and, if they don’t have a partner, all the related expenses. She suggests solutions such as delaying motherhood, sharing parenting and careers with a spouse, or becoming financially literate. (As we know, my husband and I are childfree, so I’d suggest avoiding children entirely, but I realize that’s not right for everyone).

One area MMND does not mention is how life expenses differ between men and women. In many areas, we pay the same the amount regardless of gender, i.e. housing, food, transportation. However, one category I suspect differs by gender is the one that in my budget is called “clothing, beauty, and hygiene.”

Why? The standard for professional women to look “put together” requires a greater expenditure of time and money than it does for men in similar positions.

Women’s fashions change more frequently than men’s. We have more options for kinds of clothes to wear. We wear makeup. We get manicures. Our haircuts cost much more. We have to shave more. We carry purses – often expensive designer handbags. We wear pantyhose (how I hate THAT one).

Some women like myself – acquiesce to these cultural standards grudgingly, seeing it as just part of getting ahead professionally; and some take a real joy in it. Rare is the woman who can escape from these standards completely; even a student who wears sweatshirts and jeans all the time may be expected to put on a dress and shave her legs for a wedding.

So, my readers, consider this a survey. (I am a market researcher, after all). If you could answer the next few questions, I’d be very appreciative.

- What is your gender?
- What is your occupation and level of responsibility? (manager, technician, etc)
- About how much have you spent on clothing for yourself in the past six months? If you don’t know, about how many shopping trips have you made? (or online purchases)
- How often do you get your hair cut? How much does it cost each time?
- What products do you use on your hair (shampoo, conditioner, sprays, gels, mousse, etc)? How much does each one cost? (if you don’t know, tell me the brand and I’ll calculate it)
- Describe your morning routine on a work day (or a day where you have to “dress up,” if you’re not currently employed).
- if you have a similar category to “clothing/beauty/hygiene” in your budget, tell me your monthly expenditure for just you.

I’m looking forward to hearing from you and gleaning some data on how financial expenditure for hygiene differs between the genders.

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Twenty-seven percent of the U.S. has a bachelor’s degree – and if you’re reading this, you’re probably one of those people. We all accept that the expense of our higher education buys us a better job or a graduate degree, but are there other benefits to being a college graduate?

As it turns out, the services your alma mater provides you as an alumni extend beyond free transcripts and overpriced reunion buffets. I examined the alumni benefits at the three schools I was most familiar with – Vassar College (Poughkeepsie, NY), Brandeis University (Waltham, MA), Fitchburg State College (Fitchburg, MA) – to see what they had to offer.

1. Access to libraries and athletic facilities. If you’re local to your alma mater, these can be invaluable. University libraries have subscriptions to far more journals and services than public libraries, and can allow you to delve deeply on any topic that might interest you. Your college’s gym can provide you, for free or a low cost, a top notch athletic facility. Some services are free with an alumni ID; some charge a fee. Your usage may also be limited.

2. Recreation. Alumni organizations often provide travel or entertainment opportunities to their members. Vassar, for example, is sponsoring a trip to London and Stratford-Upon-Avon to provide “backstage insight on theater,” with lectures from one of the College’s drama professors. Brandeis in the Berkshires is a similar type of program. Although these programs will cost you, being able to travel with like-minded people, with rare educational opportunities open to few, might make it worth it.

3. Contacts/networking. Most college websites feature an alumni directory of some sort. Some are simply databases of contact information, while others operate more like social networks (SUNY Canton’s MyCanton, for example, describes itself as being “like MySpace or Facebook”). Some, like Vassar, offer discussion groups where you can connect with alumni in similar fields, look for rideshares or housing, and buy and sell goods and services.

4. Career advice and assistance. Career development doesn’t stop with those transcript requests. Vassar, for example, offers a service called V-Net, a database of alumni who have offered to serve as career advisors to other alumni. More generally, some colleges have started using College Central to hook their alumni up with careers.

5. Accommodations. If you’re staying close to your alma mater, rather than dishing out for a hotel, maybe you can opt for a more personal experience? Vassar, for example, houses alumni in its scenic alumni house for $78-$168 a night. Many schools also will rent their dorm rooms out during the summer for a low cost.

6. Grants/fellowships. Even several years after graduation, you may be able to apply for grants or fellowships that your alma mater is offering. Vassar, for example, offers several fellowships to its alumni for pursuits such as studying language in a foreign country or taking “time out” when you reach your 40th birthday.

7. Lifelong learning. Many colleges provide lifelong learning opportunities to their alumni – and sometimes to local residents, as well. Brandeis in particular is known for BOLLI, the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Brandeis, which offers courses in history, government, literature, science, psychology, and other topics. This program is so popular that there’s now a lottery in place for membership! Alumni can also audit classes at many colleges; it’s all the fun of going back to school with none of the stress.

8. Credit cards. Now your alma mater can help you accumulate more debt! (Just kidding). Both Brandeis and Fitchburg State offer their graduates a college-branded credit card where every purchase supports the college’s fundraising efforts.

9. Insurance. In Massachusetts, several colleges – including Fitchburg State and Brandeis – have agreements with Liberty Mutual to provide reduced cost auto and home insurance to their graduates. Brandeis graduates also have some health and life insurance plans available to them.

10. Discounts. Fitchburg State, for example, offers a 10% discount on clothing and gift items from the college store. Through Brandeis you can receive a discount on rental cars through Avis, and a 30% discount on books from the University Press of New England.

How to plug in: Go to your alma mater’s website and look for its alumni subsite. Some sites will have a page called “alumni benefits” while some will note them in several different places. You may have to log in with your graduation info (ID code from the alumni publication, graduation year, etc) to take advantage of some services. Take some time to become familiar with what’s available to you now, so that when you need the information later, you’ll know where to find it.

(photo credit: joseph a)

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I wanted to explain what <meta> tags were to my boss, so I was looking at the source code for the index page. Stuck at the top of the <body> tag, before the first <div> were about a thousands lines of drug spam links.

Now, none of this showed up on website itself, thank goodness… but how the hell did they get there in the first place?

I immediately went into the Theme Editor and removed them, but again… how the hell did they get there in the first place?

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