We are always on the look out to make easy money without having to work too hard for it. Well here are a few tips to make some easy money from the comfort of your dorm room with paid surveys:

1) You need to know what paid surveys are. They are online questionnaire that reward you for answering a few questions. Generally, they are funded by companies that want to know if their products are going to work before they launch them.

2) You can make crazy cash just by doing a couple of those a day. You can potentially make from $4 to $20 an hour just doing paid surveys.

3) You need to know how to pick which survey site to go to. There are many scam sites out there. You need to be careful which one you pick. Here are a few survey sites:

Survey Annex
Market research companies are paying cash for your feedback, click here and start earning cash

Rewards Gateway
Like playing the Lottery? Participate NOW for $500

TheNetPanel
Join a new survey!

Survey payoff
Get Paid To Take Surveys!

Nielsen//NetRating
Do You Enjoy Taking Surveys? Join the Nielsen//NetRatings Family Give your opinion and you could win!

ValueClick Media
Is your opinion worth a chance to win $1000?

Make that money!

1) Come up with a budget of how much you can afford. Always include expenses like utilities and phone.

2) Look for locations that are going to be near your school or at least to public transportation. As a rule of thumb, never live more 30 min away from your school.

3) Look for student apartment listings in your local newspaper, at your school’s housing office and most importantly online.

4) Know your surroundings! Once you have found the student apartment you are interested in, do a drive by of the location you are interested in. No point in going to visit a student apartment in a shady neighborhood.

5) When visiting a student apartment, always inspect everything. Even if it looks good, check the hidden places to see if everything is OK: so check the pipes to see if they are not rusted, bang on the walls to see if they are too thin, etc…

6) Go with another student friend who is not going to live with you and ask for their honest opinion. They might see some things that you didn’t notice.

7) NEVER under any circumstances visit a student apartment at night time. First of all, it’s dangerous. Second of all, you might not be able to judge the real state of the place.

8 ) Don’t let the landlord pressure you into giving a firm commitment right away. Even if you like it, don’t jump on it right away. Ask for a day of reflection. It’s risky but it will allow you to think it over and make an informed decision.

Happy hunting!

The right PC will make the difference in you student life. Here are a few tips on how to choose the right PC for school:

1) Always go new if this is your first computer. Generally, new computers have discounts and rebates that will allow saving a couple of hundred dollars. Plus, a new computer comes with a warranty which offers additional security.

2) Notebook PC or Desktop PC? Ah, the eternal question! Well, here is a good rule of thumb on how to choose between the two. Are you the type of person to study in your room? If the answer is yes, then go for the desktop. If not, then go for the laptop.

3) Mac or PC? Most colleges and Universities offer services and software destined for PCs. So unless you are going to need a student computer for video editing or graphic design, get a PC.

4) If you get a laptop, make sure you get a laptop with a built-in wireless card. Most campuses offer free wireless connectivity for students.

5) Make sure that you get a student PC with a DVD player, at least 60 GB of storage, 512 MB of memory and a decent 64MB graphics card. So you can enjoy movies, download music (legally, of course) and play rad video games if you are into it.

6) Where to buy a computer? Always go online. Student bookstores offer some deals but they are ridiculous compared to the student deals you can get online. Here are a few links to buy student computers:

HP
Great deals on notebooks and desktops

Dell
Up to 20% Off At Dell™ Home

CompUSA
Check out the latest deals at CompUSA!

Buy.com
Great Computers

Host Monster for hosting services

Click here to sign up with HostMonster.com

Happy Hunting!

It’s about that time again!
The semester is about to begin and you have to get those overpriced student textbooks. Well, let me tell you right away that it doesn’t have to be like that anymore. With a little preparation and a few clicks, you can find cheap quality student textbooks.
Here are a few tips that students can follow:

1) Get your list of required student textbooks handy and search for them online at your college library. Generally speaking, the college library has to carry at least one copy of the books that professors use in class. If you are lucky, you might be able to borrow it for a week or two. Now that’s a cheap student textbook, right?

2) Try the same thing at your city’s public library. Students would be surprised how many books they can find like that. Again, how cheap can you go after this?
(Note: To find local public libraries close to where you live, students can use our search box.)

3) If all else fails, go online. There are tons of web sites that carry cheap student textbooks who want to save a few dollars. We have compiled a few links to help you guys out:

Amazon.com
Find cheap textbooks here!

Overstock.com
Save up to 80% on Books, Movies & Music at Overstock.com!

Phat campus
Huge Textbook Selection, Low Prices – Phat Campus.

TextbookX
TextbookX – Find new and used Textbooks and general books up to 90% off retail prices.

Valore.com
Used Textbooks – Save Up To 70% at Valore!

Happy hunting!

Go to your college student lounge and ask if they have student discounts on movie tickets, theme parks, concerts and much more. Somebody will point you in the right direction

USE THE INTERNET. I cannot stress this enough. Order online whenever you can. It will always save students money. If you do not own a personal computer, go to the school library and do it from there. Some stores offer special discounts for students

When shopping at grocery stores such as Ralph’s, Vons and so on, get their membership cards. It’s free and only takes a few minutes to get. This card will allow you to save money and get discounts when shopping at those stores.

Use the coupons you get in the mail instead of throwing them away. They might not seem like much, but students can easily cut between 10 to 20% of their weekly spending just with these coupons.

In addition, we have compiled a list of web sites that have pretty good student discounts:

- JourneyEd.com: This site is great if you are looking for software. It has amazing deals for Students, and all you have to do is send them a proof of school enrollment.

- Phat Campus: PhatCampus.com is an online college bookstore that specializes in providing students with a large selection of high quality textbooks at low prices. When it comes time to buy your textbooks, go here first to see if they have it.

- Buy.com: this site is more like a traditional store with fixed prices. But their site architecture is smooth and they often have amazing deals that you won’t find anywhere else.

- ZapTel.com – The Original Phone Card Superstore: this site has a lot of cheap phone cards for all destinations. Buy online and instantly receive an active phone card ready to make calls.

- Amp’d Mobile : This site has awesome phones at a great price. With these phones, you can go online, download music and check out you’re Myspace page.

- Bonus Link: Napster
Napster.com is the premier online music destination that allows members to discover and listen to music for FREE using Napster.com’s free Web player.

A car is an important asset in your student life. Here are few tips to keep in mind when hunting for the perfect student car:

1) Get a budget and stick to it.
You would be surprised how many students start wanting to spend a few grand and end up getting into debt for a car they think they want. So come up with a number you can live with and stick to it like it’s the Holy Grail.

2) Narrow down the type of student car that you want based on criteria important to you like distance from your college, space for your student stuff and of course, engine performance.

3) Always keep gas mileage in mind. With gas prices hitting the roof these days, go for a student car that will give you the best mileage possible.

4) Look for ads in your local news paper or better yet on your campus newsletter (they always have good student deals). The best time to find good student deals is at the end of the semester when a lot of college grads want to trade up and get rid of their student cars.

5) If you go to a dealership, always ask for the price of the car OUT THE DOOR. Sticker prices rarely include all the taxes and fees that come with buying a car. If the dealer gives you the run around and doesn’t give you that number, walk out.

6) Which brings me to most important point: YOU are the one with the power here. You always have the power to negotiate a deal, the power to say NO and finally the power to walk away from a deal if you don’t like it. A lot of students tend to cave in to the dealer’s pressure because they are made to feel stupid. If you get that kind of feeling, calmly and slowly walk out.

Happy hunting!

1. You get your movies directly at home without having to go out and get them yourself
2. They have a bigger selection than your ordinary DVD rental store.
3. You pay one low monthly fee and get more DVDs than you would if you were renting them in a store.

My next section will be about comparing two of the main online DVD rentals services:
Netflix.com and Blockbuster.

(As a note, I would like to say that I have personally tried both services and have found that Netflix is the most fulfilling of the two. I will show you why below.)

Both services offer 2-weeks free trial!

Let’s start by going through different criteria:

User Interface:

Netflix: Very clear and easy to use. Almost always have a picture of the DVD cover. In addition, they have a cool pop-up feature they call “extra movie information” (which you can disable if you don’t like it) – when you put your mouse on any title a pop-up window appears with the picture of the DVD cover and a brief summary of the story and film info. It is very practical especially when you only see a text link and would like to see what the DVD cover looks like or read more about it without have to click and open a new page everytime.

Blockbuster: Their website is also very clear and easy to use. However, unlike, Netflix, they do not have the “extra movie information” pop-up, which means you have to click on every text link if you want to see the DVD cover picture.

Queue:

Netflix: Their queue is pretty straightforward and easy to manage. In addition, they still have that “extra movie information” pop-up enabled there, so if for example you forgot which movie you put in your queue, you can just put your mouse over the text and you will see the DVD cover as well as some information.

Blockbuster: Their queue is also pretty straightforward and easy to manage, but again, no “extra movie information”.

Availability:

Netflix: From my experience I would say that 90% of their movies are available immediately. Even though some titles might be noted as “Short Wait”, I never had to wait for any of them. All I had to do was put them at the top of our queue and they were always shipped.
Note: I never had to wait for any of the films I wanted to rent.

Blockbuster: Here is the thing I noticed about Blockbuster: even though they say their films are available now, they might not ship it even if it is at the top of your queue. Their explanation: When I asked them, they said that even though an item is shown as available now, it might mean it is only available at one of their other distribution center, not the one in your region, so they will not ship the film until it is available in your distribution center.
(Note: This came up with Netflix too and instead of not sending you the film, the distribution center that does have the film will ship it to you directly, this might take an extra day, but I personally would rather wait an extra day than not get the movie at all.)
In addition, I noticed that a lot of the films I wanted to rent were shown as “short wait” or “long wait” which means a usual wait of 2-4 weeks for the film. Some of my films in long wait didn’t even change status after 4 weeks of waiting and being in first position in my queue.

Speed:

Netlfix: There is definitely no comparison here, they receive and ship faster than Blockbuster. I always receive my films in one day and they receive them in one day too. You can’t be faster than this with mail!

Blockbuster: The usual time to get a film was 2 days and for them to get it back was 2 days too. This is very long and cuts way down on the number of rentals you get per month. Sometimes it would even take longer. Rarely, I would get a movie in one day, but that was always a special occasion. The only good point Blockbuster has is that they ship on Saturdays (unlike Netflix), but that definitely doesn’t make up for their lack of speed.

Extra Features:

Netflix: They have a cool feature called Friends – you can invite people you know who have Netflix too to be your friends, there you can recommend movies to each other, see what each other is watching, etc. It is really fun!
They also have the possibility to create different profiles on the same account. What this does is that if you live with a roommate, boyfriend or husband, you can share the same Netlfix account but each have your own queue. You decide how to assign the DVDs, for example if you have the 3 at a time rental plan, one person might get 2 and the other 1 and they are totally independent of each other. This is a very practical feature if you live with someone who doesn’t have the same taste as you. You can each decide what movies you want to see and prioritize them as you want. Each profile gets all the Netflix services. So you can even be each other’s friends.
In addition, Netflix offer more rentals a month (for a higher price of course) so that if 3 rentals at a time is just not enough for you, you can get up to 8. This option is a great complement of the multiple accounts feature.

Blockbuster: To make it short, Blockbuster has none of that! I think I might have heard that maybe they offer more rentals a month too, but I have not seen that personally.

I guess it is not a secret which service is the best for me: Netflix is my recommendation.