In 2009, the Cale P. & Katherine Smith Student Financial Management Center opened at the University.
Six years later, during my third year here, I heard about it for the first time. I assume most of you have never heard of it, either.
The SFMC, located in the Union’s new Olinde Career Center, is a great on-campus resource that more students should know about.
Most students on campus fail to take full advantage of the resources included in our tuition.
The majority of students have an opinion on how the new UREC construction is affecting their workouts. But ask them about the new state-of-the-art career center facilities, and they will be indifferent.
This is why more students should make resources like the Career Center and the SFMC part of the student culture of the University.
“The SFMC endeavors to educate and empower each LSU student in making positive financial decisions and fostering healthy financial management behaviors,” according to their website.
To accomplish this goal; the SFMC has created an impressive list of student services.
The most useful service they provide is helping you make a budget. If you go see them and bring in a list of your expenses, they can help you make sense of it all. Even if you don’t know your expenses, they can help you figure those out.
Making a budget is the most important way to get control of your finances. With a budget, you can know exactly how much how much money you will have you have to spend on rent, food and money left over for fun stuff. Having a budget also makes your life easier by making you stress less about having enough money between paychecks.
If you only take one thing from this column, it should be to go make a budget.
You can also learn about credit cards and how to manage them, and how to get free credit reports and how to read them.
The SFMC will also teach you about investing for the future, including planning for your retirement. It’s never too early to start thinking about that.
The service the SFMC provides that I found most interesting was salary negotiation. They will teach you how to get higher salary at your first job out of college, and they will teach you for free.
The SFMC will also give you some help on special issues like identity theft, gambling and legal issues.
However, there are several services that the SFMC will not provide. This includes giving specific advice in what to invest in, tax preparation and setting up retirement accounts.
Also, don’t ask them to suggest a specific financial service, like a bank or an accountant.
I strongly encourage you to go to the website, where you will find an impressive list of tools and resources for most financial questions you may have.
Some useful tools you can use are the financial calculators they have. There are calculators to compare buying versus leasing a car, calculating loan repayments and how much money you will have to save to become a millionaire.
Be sure to check out some of the downloadable worksheets they have. Using their premade spreadsheets, you can make your own budget.
The SFMC has made it very easy for you to take control of your finances with these free tools, and you should take advantage of them.
When you finish reading this article you should go to the SFMC website and take their Transit LSU financial literacy challenge. This will show you how much you already know about personal finances and teach what you don’t know.
Then stop by when you’re in the Union one day and learn some valuable skills you’ll use for the rest of your life, maybe between belly dancing classes at the UREC.
Jay is a 20-year-old finance junior from St. Simons Island, Georgia. You can reach him on Twitter @hjcranford.