The following article is a guest post from Laura of Green Panda Treehouse. It’s also the first article in the College Money Network’s “Back To School Shuffle” series, where we will be sharing articles on a variety of back to school topics and giving away an iPod Shuffle and other prizes.

After graduating college, many people plan on starting work in a career they love, handle their finance responsibly, and build a fulfilling life. I want to show you how you can get your finances together with transportation. I’d like for you to be a college graduate without a car payment tied around your neck.

Lower Transportation Costs Now as a College Student

First off, do not spend a lot of money if you’re buying car in college. I recommend getting a car that can get you to class, work, and home. If that car is $1,000 or less, than go for it. I had a reliable car that was $500 and lasted 3 1/2 years. You can get a nicer car later, but you’re a college student and your income will be be lower than normal. Once your income increases after graduation when you are working full time, you can slowly increase your spending.

If you live in a city with decent public transportation, take advantage of it. It’s a great chance to free up some cash for later and you’ll be helping the environment.

Build an Automated System

Open a savings account specifically for purchasing a car. I use ING Direct for my savings and one advantage is you can open a sub-savings account very easily.

Every paycheck you receive, automate at least 5-10% of it to go towards your car fund. Have it deducted from your checking account into your savings account. You should be getting some income while in college because you want to build your resume up with practical work experience. Find an FDIC bank or CUNA credit union that offers high interest rates for savings and watch it grow faster.

I worked as a beer-tender occasionally to earn some cash and tips. I helped out during concert seasons, so I was usually out of school for most of the nights and it put some money into my pocket.

Use your tuition refund. Some savvy college students will be getting some money in the form of tuition refund. This is a great chance for you to sock away money. After setting aside money for your emergency fund, put 20-30% of your refund into your car fund account. As long as you don’t have any credit card debt, have fun with the rest of the money.

What kind of financial aid is available?

• Federal Pell Grants
• Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grants
• State Grants

Fill out your FAFSA early. Besides getting qualified for federal grants, filing easrly can also open up oppurunties to get state grants. You’ll cut down on having to rely on student loans.

Hunt for more scholarships. FastWeb is a popular site that searches applicable scholarships for you.

By taking advantage of automatic transfers, you can painlessly build a car fund that you can use after your graduation instead of getting a car loan and being in debt.

Your Take
How have you saved money for your goals?

It’s hard to believe that summer is practically over, and school is back in session. Of course, I don’t really care anymore, since I finished grad school last year. However, I know plenty of you are still in school, and we, the members of the College Money Network, want to help you kick off the new school year with a giveaway.

Before I get to the prizes, I’d like to introduce the newest member of the College Money Network — Studenomics. Be sure to check out his blog for great articles, covering topics that are relevant to college students and recent grads. In fact, if you head over there today, you can even enter for chance to win two free laptops.

Now back to this giveaway … keep reading to find out what’s up for grabs and how you can win.

Prizes

• 4GB iPod shuffle
• Copy of The Total Money Makeover
• One-year magazine subscription to Kiplinger’s or Money Magazine
• $20 Starbucks gift certificate

How to Enter

Each of the participating College Money Network sites will provide you with six chances to win, which means you can earn up to 36 entries into the contest! To enter at Broke Grad Student, you can do the following:

• Leave a comment on this post. (1 entry)
• Follow me (@brokegrad) on Twitter. Leave a comment on this post or email me with your Twitter user name, so I can count your entry. (2 entries)
• Tweet about this contest. Here’s a shortened link to this page for your convenience: http://bit.ly/snULC (3 entries)

How To Win

All valid entries will be assigned a unique number. We will use a random number generator to select the winning numbers. Odds of winning depend on the number of entries received.

All entries must be received by September 6, 2009 at 11:59 PM PST.

Winners will be notified the following week. After all the prizes have been claimed, we will release an official announcement listing the winners.

Rules and Restrictions

• All winners must be 18 years of age or older and live in the United States.
• No purchase is necessary to participate in this giveaway.
• We will choose the winners from the qualified participants. We are the sole judges of adding entries to the list. Plagiarized content, trackback from splogs, spams, and comments containing abusive or inappropriate languages will not be considered.
• To award the prizes, we must be able to contact you. Please leave a valid email address with your comment, or make sure we can contact you through your web site. Your contact information will not be shared with anyone else.
• For certain prizes, winners will be required to submit a physical address to ship the prize. Again, your contact information will never be shared with anyone.
• Prizes are provided as-is, and substitutions may be made at our discretion.
• Winners must reply within 1 week from the time we notify them to claim their prize. Otherwise, they forfeit their prize, and it will be awarded to an alternate.

Last December, I joined a great online community of young Generation Y professionals at Brazen Careerist. Since joining the community, I have met new people, discovered new blogs, and read and/or participated in interesting discussions on practically every career-related topic imaginable. I’ve also had over ten of my blog posts featured on the front page of Brazen Careerist, which has helped my blog gain more exposure. Starting today, that’s all going to change … for the better of course.

Brazen Careerist is taking the next step in becoming the career management tool for Generation Y by getting rid of its blog-driven homepage and putting the focus entirely on you. What you see when you first log on is now entirely controlled by you. Your personal Fan Feed gives you real-time updates of the ideas that your favorite members are sharing with the community.

In addition to the Fan Feed update, the user profile feature has also been updated. There is a new résumé section where you can show where you’ve been, and a personal Ideas Feed that showcases your knowledge, opinions, and thoughts (a.k.a. your potential).

I truly believe that networking is the most effective way to get where you want to be in your career. Networking was definitely a huge factor in how I landed my dream job. While Facebook can be a little too informal and LinkedIn a little too traditional, Brazen Careerist provides a nice blend of features from the two sites, and it really has the potential to become a great career management tool for Generation Y professionals.

Earlier this year I shared how I’ve made over $500 with CashCrate. Now I’m back to share how I’ve made over $1000 with CashCrate.

In case you’re wondering, CashCrate is a simple, easy way for broke college students to make some extra cash while putting off studying and homework. Trust me. I joined CashCrate while putting off my thesis, and it definitely succeeded in both making me some extra money and putting off my thesis.

CashCrate is one of the more popular “Get Paid To”, or GPT, sites. You make money by filling out surveys and completing trial offers. While most of the other sites you’ll find about CashCrate make it sound like the most exciting thing in the world, I refuse to lie to you. Filling out surveys and completing trial offers is boring. Even though it’s pretty easy to do, the process can be a little confusing for newcomers.

Luckily, I’ve documented some of my CashCrate experiences and shared them on my site to help you out, because everyone can use some extra cash. In my article on how to make $24 with CashCrate right now, I provide a step-by-step explanation of how I completed three trial offers and earned $24 from CashCrate, and it only took about an hour’s worth of my time.

Since you can only do each trial offer once, you’ll eventually run out offers to complete, but thanks to CashCrate’s generous referral program, you can keep making money. For each person you refer to CashCrate, you’ll receive 20% of your referrals’ earnings, and a $3.00 bonus for each referral who earns at least $10. By telling your friends about CashCrate, you can help them make some extra money too (and earn a few extra dollars for yourself in the process).

In fact, all of the money I’ve made with CashCrate this year has been through referrals and bonuses. Just take a look below.

This is a guest post by Joshua Heckathorn, who runs Creditnet.com and holds an MBA and B.S. in Finance. Creditnet is a free resource for anyone who wants to learn more about credit and compare hundreds of credit cards online. When Josh isn’t glued to the screen of his Mac, you’re bound to find him at the nearest rock-climbing wall or sushi joint around Seattle.

The new rules of credit have once again ignited controversy around when one is considered a legal adult in the United States. Is it 18 or 21? We just can’t seem to make up our mind.

Yes, you can buy cigarettes and even choose to defend your country at age 18, but according to the new rules, you’re not mature enough to decide whether you can handle the responsibilities of credit. Does that seem fair? Perhaps not, but supporters of the legislation argue that young adults, whether they like it or not, need greater protection to help them avoid falling into massive amounts of debt prior to graduation.

According to SallieMae, the average college senior with at least one credit card graduated with $4,138 in credit card debt in 2008. That’s more than a 40% increase since their previous study was completed in 2004, and 2009 will likely be worse as tuition expenses soar and other lending sources remain in a deep freeze.

The rise in student credit card debt is clearly a problem, but many people aren’t convinced the new rules of credit will actually solve the underlying issue – a lack of financial education among young adults. That’s a tough issue to solve, and in my opinion it must first be tackled by those responsible for raising our nation’s youth – parents and legal guardians. But that’s an entirely different article. For the time being, we’ll just have to make due with what our elected officials have given us.

So, let’s quickly review what you need to know about this new law. Signed on May 22nd, the Credit Card Act of 2009 essentially bans credit cards for people under 21 unless they have adult cosigners or can prove they have sufficient income to support the level of credit given. No one really knows what “sufficient” income means yet, but you can expect to hear more details on this before the law takes full effect in February 2010. The bottom line is if you don’t have a credit card by next February, you’ll have to either beg for mom or dad’s signature or prove you have a job that provides enough income to support a revolving credit line.

In addition, you won’t have to sift through dozens of prescreened credit card offers in your mailbox anymore. Credit issuers are banned from sending them to anyone under 21. And there’s no need to worry about getting an unexpected credit card in the mail after signing up for a free pizza during student orientation. Giving away any type of “freebie” for credit card applications at a college-sponsored event is also banned.

While the Credit Card Act has certainly brought about some much needed changes to protect young consumers from predatory-lending practices, it’s difficult to comprehend how restricting credit for those under 21 will address the underlying issue of financial education. Parents who already foot students’ tuition and credit card bills will likely just cosign for new credit cards and continue paying the bills. Will any of these students learn more about how to manage credit wisely? Very few.

On the other hand, responsible students who are working hard to put themselves through school without parental support might discover they have no access to credit when they need it most. Of course, no credit means no credit score, which will make their lives even more difficult as they enter the real world and need to rely on their credit score to finance a car, home, or even a graduate education.

What do you think of the Credit Card Act? Do you believe the age restriction on credit will have positive long-term effects?