Want to do better in school? Watch this Interview with Taylor Braithwaite

Fresh off of  taking a major test I sat down with Taylor Braithwaite and tried to ask him the questions that all of us who get ok grades would like to know about those who get amazing grades, in this video you'll learn some solid tips from Taylor that I had never considered before.

What is your advice to get better grades? Leave it in the comments below!

Feel free to follow the blog (there are multiple options to your right) 

See you again soon!  

Ever wonder how to eat healthy, while on a college student budget? Jacqueline Swainston explains.

Investing in Health

By Jacqueline Swainston

Many people argue that healthy eating costs too much money and thereby choose cheaper, less quality foods; hence the joke: What does poverty taste like? Top Ramen and hot sauce. In life we are faced with choices, usually, the “hard” way versus the “easy” way. Let me convince you that although eating healthy might seem like the “hard” way, in reality, eating healthy consistently is the most important financial and physical decision you will ever make.

The Why

1. The Cost of Health: The saying goes “Money can’t buy you happiness.” Do you know what else it can’t buy you? Good health. However, good health is an investment that brings both financially and health benefits. It is truth that healthy food can be more pricey than processed-crap-with-no-nutrients (aka Top Ramen, Fritos, Soda, etc). However, do you know what is more expensive than organic spinach and grass-fed meat? All the medical bills and costs of diseases that directly relate to a bad diet (Type II Diabetes, Obesity, Heart Disease, etc). Let’s look at the research: the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention states that in 2008 alone, obesity cost the country about $147 billion in medical costs. Keep in mind, obesity is only part of the negative health consequences of unhealthy eating; a bad diet can contribute to numerous health problems and doesn’t always cause obesity. However, current research from the Harvard School of Public Health proves that healthy eating does cost more: $1.50 per day. $1.50 is the price of a candy bar or cup of coffee. Would you rather pay thousands of dollars in doctors’ bills (hoping that medicine and save your health)? Or, alternatively, invest in your health from the beginning? A $1.50 a day doesn’t seem like a big financial sacrifice to me, especially when you consider the reward.
2. Buying junk food is a waste of money. What do you get from eating junk food? A temporary sugar rush that abruptly crashes your body into a stomach ache and a loss of energy. The 200 calories you consumed in drinking that soda not only gave you zero of the nutrients your body needs every day but also over-taxed your body (dealing with all the sugar is hard work, man!),  crashed your energy, contributed to a sugar addiction, and dehydrated your body! Does that sound like money spent well? Your body and I think not! However, if that two bucks went to some fresh veggies? The results would dramatically differ. High-quality vegetables replenish your body with vitamins and minerals, water, fiber (which keeps your body’s systems working healthy), and keeps your body hydrated. All of these support good health! Fruits, vegetables, healthy fats, proteins= great way to spend your food budget.

The How

1. Drink water! Not only is water the cheapest drinking options (usually), it is the best beverage for your body. Most people greatly underestimate the amount of water that their body needs to function at its best. Staying well hydrated help you maintain a healthy body weight, keeps your body working the way it’s supposed, and keeps your energy levels high. Let me reiterate: DRINK MORE WATER. Save money, and save your health.
2. Spend money on the right foods. As previously discussed, some healthy foods can cost more money. However, if you took the money that you normally waste on candy/soda/coffee and redirect that money and invest it in fresh produce, the “extra cost” of healthy products will disappear. You could spend $10 at McDonalds and get zero nutrients for your buck or buy some beets and chicken and get your dollars worth of nutrition.
3. Eat at home. Choosing to make your own food rather than eating out not only saves you calories and from bad fats, it saves you dollars. It is common knowledge that buying food from a grocery (or even better, local farm) can save you some cash. When you choose to eat out, not only are you paying the cost of food, but you are also paying some cost for all the workers, taxes, and bills of the company. Furthermore, we you are the chef, you decide the amount of sugar and fat that goes into your products. Homemade food is typically more fresh and healthier.   
4. Prevention is more effective than doctors. Although medicine has become incredibly advanced and inspiring, doctors still struggle to restore health that has been damaged from a bad diet. When it comes to the major killers in America (heart disease, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, etc), prevention is the most effective weapon. It is much better to never have Type II diabetes than try to reverse the disease. It is cheaper to prevent than to try to repair. If you spend money now on a healthy diet and exercise, you will save yourself tons of money spent trying (often unsuccessfully) to buy your health back.

In closing here are some links that go more in-depth than my article. They give some good tips as well.

http://www.helpguide.org/articles/healthy-eating/eating-well-on-the-cheap.htm

http://www.lovingmynest.com/learning-activities/freezer-crock-pot-cooking-day/

http://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/eat4cheap/Pages/cheap-food-shopping.aspx

Day 36: 5 Lessons I've Learned on How to Win

What have you found that works with winning competitions? Here's what I have

Tonight was the conclusion of my fifth business competition, and as I stood up on stage I realized a few things that may be helpful in your pursuit of paying for college either through competitions or through scholarships . These are the five lessons I have been learning about the science of winning:

1. Know the criteria, hit the criteria: In every competition I am aware of there are certain benchmarks that the judges are looking for, if you hit them they can't help but to give you a high score. 
2. Speak close to your heart: Other people want to feel passion and intensity, it gives them confidence that something can happen. When you present your idea, use only stories, quotes and thoughts that are closest to your heart, where the passion is. 
3. Sign up: By the mere action of signing up for a competition will benefit you, if you lose you have developed and refined new skills, made new connections and experienced life more (and often there is a free dinner involved.) If you win, there are all kinds of new options that open up to you. 
4. Realize there is probably someone working harder than you: This advice comes from my sister's basketball coach, she tells them to imagine their opponent in the gym working their hearts out more hours then them. I have realized that the person who wins a competition is not random, it is almost always a direct relationship to how much work they put in. 
5.  Preparation proceeds power: There is some quote out there that says, "The will to win is nothing compared to the will to prepare." To add on to the thought of working harder, is working smarter, you need to prepare to differentiate yourself, and to recognize what your unique value proposition is. Power comes from preparation, that "winging it" just cannot produce. 
6. (ok here is a bonus sixth one) Partner with people that are better than you: Any victory is a team sport, get the best people you know to help you and to bounce off ideas with. You are not and don't need to be the best at everything, just get to know the people that are. 

Tonights competition that I was just apart of was exceptional, every competitor was very good in what they did and are wonderful people. It was neat to see that everyone that made it to the final round made money, something unexpected to all of us. It just goes back to the lesson that has been a constant on this quest to making $5,000, and that is 

Try. 

-Bruce 

What have you found that works with winning competitions? Comment bellow. 

Day 29: The Best Financial Advice I Have Ever Received

At a particularly hard moment this past week, I felt really frustrated with finances. It is really painful to look at another zeroed out bank account and realizing you don't even have money to drive back home, again, let alone knowing your going to have to make due with living off spaghetti for another week. On top of that the automatic payment of my tuition dipped into my savings account bringing me $200 in debt in tithing. And all this while I have been struggling for over a year to just get some breathing room in my bank account, Have you ever felt like that?

So I got on a phone call with my dad and poured out my frustration to him, expecting sympathy and receiving some of the best financial advice of my life, he told me to...

"Relax."

"These things just happen as God wants them to, you just got to enjoy life as it comes, some blessings come now, some come later, I had to wait until I was fourty-two in order to win a basketball tournament but it was better because all my kids could be there."

What a profound thought! Just to give some added validity to his thoughts on money, you need to realize that my dad has been semi-retired since his thirties, he has not been bad off. It seems very counter intuitive just to relax and let life bring you the opportunities and the money you need. It is definitely against all the loud voices of self help books, motivational speakers and business coaches who constantly promote your own ability to change your circumstances.

But consider the thought with me for a moment, what if there are things that are simply just beyond our control? Even with finances? If so, what we can't change, we could just come to peace with. It's kinda like a Lilly I have been considering, they grow by just opening themselves to the sunlight that surrounds them, and they are beautiful.

A lily doesn't worry about anything, it just grows naturally. Similarly, I have been converted to the belief that our finances and careers are like that, we just have to grow into what we are designed to be. If we just follow the simple, daily things that bring light to us, that warm us and that help us to grow in all aspects of life, and if we wait patiently we will have the beautiful career, spouse and the things that we ultimately desire.

 Money is really nothing, despite what we tell ourselves sometimes, we already have every thing to make us happy around us, if we have all those things then, happiness is now. So until we can afford big bricks of cheese, and a car made in this decade, and that ridiculously over sized iPhone 6, there are some things we can do,  we can enjoy life, our college friends, great professors, dances, football games, deep conversations, old cars, sodium filled foods, growing up, sunrises, smelly apartments, geeky roommates, late late nights, early early morning  and blue skies so wide sometimes we don't know what to do with it.

That's why the best financial advice I have ever received is,

Relax.

What is some of the best advice you have received?

Please feel free to leave your comments below.

P.S.- In the coming weeks I will be getting some recipes on video and guest posts on eating healthy on a college budget it will be very useful and practical, you will not want to miss it, subscribe or follow the blog to ensure you get these must have recipes and tips!

See you!

Day 18: Interview With Jake Giles on How to Have College Pay You

In this interview with Jake Giles I learned a lot. Jake is a student who is actually having the college financial system work for him instead of working for it. He shares how he found a way to not have to pay for rent, have his tuition covered and make more than $1,000 off of doing it using the financial aid available to him, all while having a high school GPA of 3.7 and a 22 A.C.T. Score. Check it out.

If you like the interview, never miss another by  to subscribe to our blog by typing in your email

address in the top right corner. Leave a comment and tell me what you think of this interview. Thanks! 

Day 15: Getting Down to the Numbers

Mountain Dew Challenge complete! I sold my final Mountain Dew last night at around 9 pm and it was a big relief to realize that I would not have to drink it after all. After that glowing feeling of success wore off though, I came to the realization of my total net profit from that investment, an incredible, $1.57... not quite going to put enough points on the board to get me to go to BYUI in January.

So tonight I started taking a harder look at what it is really going to take to make this thing happen and crunched some real numbers. I realized with standard expenses from my life right now it would by necessity suck out around 570 dollars a month right now (last month's expenses exceeding 670 dollars.) That is a major hole that I have left unaccounted for in my earlier estimations.  That will add up to be around $1,300 before I leave for college. So really when I was shooting for $5,000, what I really am needing is somewhere closer to $6,300 plus what taxes is going to take out.

That is a whole lot more money!! So I'm going back to the drawing board knowing what got me here won't get me there. I am going to focus instead of on little items like Mountain Dew, I am going to focus on major items that can move me up at around a $100 a time. So instead of whatever the outragous number of cans I would have to sell, it moves it down to a bit more realistic, however still crazy number of 63 sales between now and January.

It's not easy making green!

-Bruce

P.S.- Don't forget to sign up for the blog to never miss a post again, just put your email in the top right corner of the page.

P.P.S.S.- like our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/scholarplan 

Day 14: Just Because Your in College, Doesn't Mean You Have to Be Broke!

According to the Urbandictionary.com (which we all know to be a reliable resource) a starving student is,  among other things, "A college student who lacks disposable income because he does not have a job.." it continues on to say that, "The stereotype is that this student must resort to eating Top Ramen to survive."

BUT IS THAT TRUE? That is what I want to know. Every time I say that I am broke, it is followed by "well you are in college," it is said almost as religiously as a Christian puts an "amen" at the close of a prayer. I don't want to believe that that is my or your fate in college. I don't want to believe that we must scrimp by on sodium enriched food and caffeinated drinks, and  bank accounts with lots of zeros in all the wrong places and worried about when the next check is coming and I don't think I have to! 

Everything so far about this 97 day challenge has showed me how much we really are in control of our finances. As soon as I committed to making a conscious effort to changing my financial situation, opportunities opened up that I never thought were possible. Last week I made something like 30 more dollars than I usually would have selling things online, and I also got a person to agree to something that I get an 85$ dollar referral bonus. That's $115 that I would have just let slip by had I not been conscious of it, that's a lot of money over the course of months and years. Plus that is just a beginning. 

(Your bank account no more!) 

Which leads me to today's tip which comes from someone in my class who over heard me complaining about the odds of getting a scholarship,

Day 14 Tip: Try

He told me to just go for it, and that is exactly what I have been learning, just find a way and go for it and learn as you go. 

To help you and I as we achieve our goals,  I  have decided to interview someone each week who is actually making it, who is a thriving student as opposed to the "Starving Student." I am going to give you their secrets and the answers to questions like, Where are the rich students? (the ones who aren't riding high on mommy and daddy's money) What do they think like? What do they act like? What do they do? How can they afford cheese?! Why couldn't you and I be one of them? 

So stick around for Wednesday when I interview Jake Giles who is a student who is making money off of going to college! Now that is what I am talking about! 

I would love to hear your thoughts, what do you think? Do we have to be starving students in college or is their some way out? What questions would you like to have answered about thriving instead of starving in college? 

(By the way I only have one can left of Mountain Dew to sell, yeeehaaa!) 

STOP STARVING STUDENTS!

-Bruce 

P.S.- Subscribe to the blog by email in the top right corner and turn the starving student in you into a morbidly obese one (in a good way..)

P.S.S.- Don't forget to like us at facebook.com/scholarplan or friend us on on instagram at scholarplan. 

Day 8: The Ultamate Mountain Dew Challenge (one more way to earn money for school)

Yesterday night I got with the members of my mastermind group (a group of people who hold each other accountable for their goals) and they wouldn't buy my excuse that my Mountain Dew wasn't selling. So Daren (the bearded man in the video) gave me a challenge, which I couldn't refuse and will regret if I don't complete...check it out....

I am happy to note that I have sold two more Dew's today, and fully plan not to drink any Mountain Dew...ever! If you do not have a mastermind group you should get one or join ours, we meet in person and via google hang outs every Wednesday night at 8:15. It is a great way to get yourself to go out and get things done.

Talk to you tomorrow!
-Bruce

PS- If your interested in joining our mastermind (absolutely free, in fact more than free) shoot me an email at brucegreggorypeck@gmail.com.

Day 7: Lessons on Procrastination and Paying for College

Late last night I waited nervously in front of the computer. I was waiting for the very last part of my application to go through, knowing at 12 am the deadline closed. The trouble was is that last part was a reccomendation sent by someone else....who was having trouble with the internet. So 11:30 came and wemt , then 11:45, then 11:50.... And finally 12 o'clock....nothing.... It was closed, my dreams of going to BYUI in January were shot. Lesson learned. 

Or so I thought. However as I woke up this morning I saw that it had been submitted and I looked again at the website and it said that ic ould be all day on October 1st. I was relieved, but, when I called the school a man at the main office told me it was due by  last night but the application department may understand so I am calling them tommorow...lesson... DON'T PROCRASTINATE YOUR COLLEGE APPLICATION!!! 

Also this morning I had one success, I found this note: 

You can make extra money on the side! 

Hey if you like what you see, feel free to subscribe to the blog by entering your email on the side bar. 

And I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments below. 

Only you can stop starving students! See you tommorow! 

-Bruce Peck

Day 6: The top 5 Most Helpful Scholarship Planning Resources

Here is the top 5 Scholarship resources on the internet: 

5) Scholarships.com is a useful, but very clustered website, like many of the scholarship websites I have used, I found it confusing. On the site where to go and what to do is not clear to the first time user, however, when you search out scholarships it will definitely give you a big out put and a lot of information. 

4) Cappex.com has a great tool when you want to go on a college tour trip, it's called "Campus Visit Planner" (creative name, I know) this tool allows you to plug in all the colleges that you wish to visit, then it will map it out for you, and you can have the website contact the school and let them know when you are coming. Where was this when I was 17? 

3) I like Zinch.com because it was the most straight forward and easy to use, a feature I particularly liked helps you compare colleges side by side on a number of different features like the admittance rate,the average GPA and the cost of the school. It also has a companion site called chegg.com which is college student focused and has a textbook service. 

2) The Scholarplan.org search feature (of course I'm going to mention our website) I have found to be super useful. This website in our website allows you to do a custom search for your school and it's scholarships which is very accurate and very useful. Check it out! 

1) The very most useful source that I have discovered so far on my search is the actual school website such as this one for BYUI. In my work on these sites listed above, they seem to be good for finding you general information about Scholarships and getting you a billion different scholarships you could apply for. The actual school website page was way simpler for me and actually showed all the relevant scholarships I could get. 

Update on the broke to rich challenge: Today I sold my brother's set of golf clubs online, proving that online selling can work! Also today I became  sodaKid by buying a box of mountain dew and attempting to sell it to my fellow students...no success yet...

See you tomorrow! 

- Bruce 

Scholarplan.org 

Cappex

Day 5: 7 Sure Signs Your a Starving Student and Today's Tip to Solve it.

You know your a starving student when....

1. You saw this photo and wondered how I got that picture of you....

   

   2. You wish you made some of those dishes dirty... 

    3. You can't name this president (it's been awhile since you've seen him) 

   4. This is a menu item on a upcoming romantic evening 

5. You found yourself drooling over the thought of having this car (please see a doctor if you know which year this model is, you need some professional help) 

6. This is looking increasingly like a real occupation

(photo from http://blogs.oc.edu/talon/cat/plasma_donation_can_help_hurt)

7. And last, but certainly not the least predictable........

YOU READ THIS BLOG!!!!!

And now for today's tip! 

 

Scholarship Search Tool Link

Thank you! See you tomorrow! 

Day 3 of the 97 Day Pay for College Challenge: Learning to Sell online

Today being day three I began implementing my financial portion of the plan, my brother and I started working on selling some golf clubs online we used a great site called KSL Classifieds, (http://www.ksl.com/index.php?nid=13) it is the first time that I have ever tried to sell anything online, and it really surprised me how easy it was to put things up and attempt to sell them, so far this looks like it could be a really valuable option to help pay for college, but we'll see what happens. 

Have you ever tried to sell things online? What is your advice? Feel free to leave comments below. See you back here on Monday!

Day 2: How to plan for paying for college

Day 2: Making the plan! Today I learned some great things about how to find scholarships and how easy it actually is. I also found a great article on 25 ways to make money really quick and made a word document that could be useful to anyone trying to figure out how to find a scholarship!

Heres the links:
http://www.dailyfinance.com/photos/25-unusual-ways-to-make-quick-money/#!fullscreen&slide=980290 
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bzx_RuhsAlZrX3ZzSDJmNjQzS3M/edit?usp=sharing

Broke to rich in 97 days challenge

I am taking 18 credits, I am a part of three clubs, and make 8$ an hour, needless to say I don't have any money, sound like you? In this video I explain a 97 day challenge to change all that and hopefully show you how to do so as well, enjoy! 

www.scholarplan.org