Down to business

Alright so one big tip I have for recent college grads even for students still in school...

Budget.

Boring as anything but it really helps to start getting an idea of how much you'll have going out and how much coming in before you have to actually pay the bills.

For most people it's pretty scary when you add up the amount of loans that were taken out to pay for school not mentioning any personal loans that may have been added to the pile. I know I personally freaked out.

I was blessed to have a Mom who was a fiend at budgeting. Ever since I got an allowance I was told to budget it. While at times it didn't seem like a blessing, now that I have a mound of loans to pay back it really has helped with the itty bitty income that I have.

This was the general rule when I was growing up:
10% To Charity
20% For Savings
20% Rent
50% Spend

Now obviously there's some adjusting to do now that actual bills need to be taken into account.
For those who have the money to spend I recommend Quicken (image from quicken.com):

This version has a budgeting system put into place so all you have to do is put in the average amount of income, scheduled bills (such as loans), and other categories you'll be spending in (like groceries, rent, auto stuff etc). Then it'll average out the miscellaneous income that you have left to spend (other wise known as discretionary income), and TA DA! You have a budget. But the key to this is that you have to input your spending data so you can actually see how the budget is working for you and if your overspending in certain areas and where you need to cut back. It takes some time, but it is definitely worth it.

For those of you who don't have the money to spend on the program here's a worksheet that is helpful that I found on about.com:

http://financialplan.about.com/cs/budgeting/l/blbudget.htm

This will provide you with the same basic idea, but it won't automatically tell you, like Quicken, where things need to change.

So while budgeting might be a pain in the butt and no fun (unless you're a dork like me and like to play with the numbers), it will be very helpful when the bills start coming in so you don't feel completely lost.