Two Tips to Slash College Expense

“Mini-Me” is going off to college in a few weeks and I’ve been uncovering ways to reduce college expense.  Here are a few ideas I came up with that might help buffer the sticker shock:

1. Insurance.

I’m not talking about life insurance for children.  I’m talking about “thing” insurance. My daughter isn’t a klutz, but you never know when someone is going to use her laptop as a basketball.  Here’s a company that insures college kids against theft and damage:

National Student Insurance, Inc. is a company my friends Ken and Avi told me about it.  This company will insure a college student’s belongings for a very reasonable premium.

This company will cover laptops, iPods, books, clothing, etc.  Just about everything.  Apparently, it doesn’t even matter if the student lives on or off campus.

What I find very interesting about this insurance is that the coverage is very broad and relatively inexpensive.  For a laptop, bike, iPod and other miscellaneous items with a total value of $3,300, the premium works out to be $88 a year.  By the way, that includes accidents, drops and liquid spills.  No longer will I shudder when I hear “oops.”

Have you had experience with this kind of coverage?  Any reason why I shouldn’t buy it?

2.  Save money on books.

When the mafia went “legit” they must have gotten into the textbook business.  What a scam.  The prices are unreasonable, to say the least. Have you  had any experience renting text books or buying used?  From what I understand, college textbooks can cost close to $1,000 per semester.  Yikes!

One book rental site I found was BookRenter.com.  According to their site, a student can save 60%  to 70% on books each semester.  Those savings will buy a lot of beer, so recent college grads probably have some experience with this option.  This site allows you to rent for just about any school term.  All you have to do is input the book’s ISBN number and away you go.  You’ll get your books in two days, and when you’re ready to return them, you simply go to their website and print out a return shipping label – costs included.

Afterthought – I’m also going to encourage my kid to look into paid internships for college students.  You might do the same. 

Do you have any experience with either of these ideas?  Anything else you can tell me about to help reduce costs?

Talk about your higher education – check out these posts.

We’ll start out with the Pilgrim’s Pick of the Pack.

Free Money Finance brings up the all-important question of balancing college investment versus the payoff. Yes…it’s a monetary investment…at least in my opinion.  What does it cost?  What do you earn as a result?  That’s where the conversation starts and ends when you talk to me about it.   Great article…

What scares you more…spiders or money?  Read this article from CashMoneyLife.com and conquer your phobias.

Mike at Oblivious Investor.com continues to pump out great articles.  Here he talks about the importance of expecting the unexpected when it comes to investing.

When you go out to dinner with friends, who pays?  David over at MoneyNing.com takes a hard look at this uncomfortable issue.

Does your salary match your true wage?  An important conversation over at MyTwoDollars.com…chime in and give them your two cents!

A guest post I wrote over at Get Rich Slowly might be of interest to you.  I ask if you spend money differently when you’re around your friends. I used to do this…now everyone knows I’m a cheap SOB so it doesn’t matter.  Is there some middle ground?

Matt, my buddy, wrote a guest post over at FiveCentNickel.com.  He’s trying to motivate you to get rid of your debt. A great pick in the pants.  Thanks, Matt.

Moolanomy picks up where the college profs stop.  He gives college students some very important calculators they can use.

The Monevator tells us you don’t have to be a Donald Trump to treat yourself like a Howard Hughes.  Do yourself a favor and read this one.  You’ll thank me later.