Learn financial how-to beyond just how to pinch pennies. (http://tinyurl.com/qdjxx9)

At 22, Stephanie Collins is a New Yorker who graduated in May from the Rochester Institute of Technology. Armed with a Bachelor’s in Applied Arts and Science, she switched gears and now blogs full time, launching Poorerthanyou.com, a financial vehicle in which she researches and writes on topics ranging from economic advice for recent college graduates to job searching techniques to emerging from credit card debt. She receives emails from mothers and fathers seeking advice for their children, and young adults just entering the career world who have put her advice into practice.

It’s a unique brand of financial advice, coming from a young adult who found out the countless ways things could go wrong before discovering techniques on how to turn her life around. Collins, for example, borrowed $42,000 from the federal government for student loans, and eventually withdrew from school for nine months because of the financial burden.

Two years into film school, she dropped out because she was overwhelmed with student loans topping $17,000. Collins predicted dismal career prospects graduating with a film degree and forecasted roughly $40,000 in student loans to pay back after graduation. Simply put, she could not afford to stay in school.

“I didn’t know this, but apparently, there’s a cap on the amount you can borrow from the government,” Collins wrote in a blog entry dated January 9, 2007, soon after she started posting personal travails as well as advice to the Internet and months before the recession officially kicked in. “After hitting the $23,000 mark, my loans would suddenly run out, and I’d have to scramble to start pulling in loans from private sources.”

Hearing a 22-year-old who has emerged on the upside of seeming financial ruin might be exactly what it takes to reach members of the graduating class of 2009 – a class struggling to find employment as the nationwide unemployment rate surged to 9.4 percent in July.

On her site, readers are advised on how to use social networking tools to get a job, express genuine interest and enthusiasm for the jobs they apply for, and consider the cost of “friending” a hiring manager or potential boss on social networking sites.

In a post dated July 27, Stephanie offers pointers on making the move from your parents’ home to living independently in an apartment. The post details how to search listings, find and read apartment reviews, set up a visit, and finally make a decision. This post is one of a multi-part series that concluded advice on getting settled in a new environment.

In an entry from the same series titled: “Moving: 8 Tips to Avoid Scams on Craigslist,” Stephanie warns potential users to avoid accepting offers that seem too good to be true, paying up front for anything, and accepting strange forms of payment.

Personal financial bloggers like Collins are reaching out and offering advice to young people who often do not want to admit that they need the help, and are also reluctant to accept economic pointers from seasoned financial whizzes.

As young people turn away from traditional sources for financial and career advice, personal financial blogs are cropping up across the Web to compete. In past generations, twentysomething Americans might have turned to their parents, professional financial advisors, or resource books to gain the essential knowledge required to establish themselves financially. Today, for a generation that has grown up wired, the Internet is often the best place to initiate the conversation, if not keep it going.

In the months following Collins’ graduation, she has encountered new financial obstacles and been blogging about it at every step of the way. As she interviews for jobs, and overcomes possible setbacks along the way, readers can anticipate gaining additional insight. Her continued hopes for the site are to reach young people to make smart financial and economic decisions and, along the way, enjoy life.

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Tags: career, investment, money, personal finance, savings

This entry was posted on Monday, August 17th, 2009 at 2:49 pm and is filed under career. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.