Poor Financial Management The (College) Major Stumble
- Train Wreck Tuesday
- Our Train Wreck series features stories of financial woe submitted anonymously by our readers. Submit your own story, and if selected, you'll win a Mint t-shirt!
The following article is one example of our take on one of issues we care a lot about here at Mint, including: financial management and debt management, etc. Click here to find many more.
My largest financial management train wreck was my unwillingness to accept that my major wasn’t cut out for me in college. I “worked” for three and a half years at Georgia Tech, trying to be a Computer Scientist. As such my GPA suffered, and I was eventually kicked out of school.
Had I accepted that I wasn’t a good computer programmer I could have saved thousands of dollars in tuition, and I could have avoided enrolling at a community college, trying to regain an acceptable GPA to get back into a four-year university.
Even past that though, when I got kicked out of college, I lost all support from those who were contributing to my tuition and living funds. I had a job at the time, but I was living slightly above my means. I then committed to a trip with roommates, which cost me nearly $3000 on my AmEx card — a balance I’m still working on paying off over 15 months later.
On top of that, my job at the time was an independent contractor; and while I had saved some money for Uncle Sam when tax time came, I had to spend that money just to pay bills before I moved home. When tax time came, I got hit with owing taxes equal to roughly what I make in a month at my current job. I’m on a payment plan with them, but it’s still a hefty chunk of my already-tight income.
My life didn’t end up in the toilet from this, but I’m struggling to make ends meet. I’m living free of rent with my family but I’m working a job which — although it doesn’t pay me much financially — I really enjoy. Sadly enough, though, I’m going to leave this job soon, because I need to make more money.
Currently I’m on schedule to have the balance on my credit card paid off in a year at most.
Mint’s Take Away:
Choosing the right major or career choice is certainly not an easy task. Before you decide on a program and school to study, you may want to consider how interested you are in the specific major.
Consider this fact, according to the U.S. Department of Education, the average cost of studying at a 2-year institution is about $6,200, while the cost of studying at a 4-year institution is about $14,500.
If you’re unsure of what you may be passionate about, it may be a practical financial choice to pursuit your academic studies at a two year institution first (such as a community college), and then transfer to a four year institution when you have a better idea of what you want to study.
Additional Resources:
Train Wreck Tuesdays are a weekly post of horrible financial mistakes. They are posted anonymously. Submit your story; if you’re selected, you get a free personal finance book. The best comment gets the same prize! Check out past Train Wreck stories here.
So the lesson learned is to choose a career (and major) that you love first, and worry about money second. Choosing a major you hate means you’ll never truly be happy, and you won’t have the drive to be really good at it.
i agree aaron… i thought that my major was going to land me a dream job and id never have to worry about bills again… boy was i wrong… on top of not being able to find a decent job since graduating in 2004 in my field i no longer want to have any majors careers options
Just wondering. Since the Mint software is not available yet, is there a free software you would recommend in the mean time?
@Misti You should check out Yodlee. My finances couldn’t wait for Mint any longer and Cap recommended Yodlee and simply put, it’s amazingly awesome.
Basically all you do is add your accounts (banking, bills, loans, etc.) and Yodlee does the rest for you. It’s about 90% accurate with auto-categorizing your transactions for you.
@Misit & Elissa: Sorry for the late response! As Elissa said, you should check out Yodlee during the mean time. Mint will actually be working with Yodlee to bring you some more awesome goodness in managing your finances (scroll down the page and you’ll see us listed right below JPMorgan Chase). But yeah, if you have some more in-depth question, just shoot me an email.
Hey folks..
well, ive been following mint a lot lately. Now, If Cap, you can comment on what exactly this new system is going to do? Is it just about tracking your money? I use http://www.expensr.com for that and its absolutely fantastic.
PS: How soon may I expect my invite?
@avner: Mint will also let you track your money. I believe a good difference from expensr is that it’ll allow you to see changes in your accounts daily. You also wouldn’t have to manually import data, as the focus of Mint is on simplicity: the less steps you have to take to see how much money you have, where it’s going, the better it is (in my opinion anyway).
expensr is pretty darn cool though, although I can’t seem to use it with my Bank of America accounts, which are currently my primary checking. I could have sworn BoA accounts had quicken/excel export features before… but now I can’t find them. So unless I can export my data and import them into expensr correctly, I can’t really fully utilize it yet.
lastly, there will be more invites going out in a couple of weeks!