What would you do with $1600??
polycounter lvl 11
Ok guys, Ive got a problem, not a bad problem but a problem. Today I got my refund check from my school loans for $1600 and I am thinking about what to do with it. Im a student at the Art Institute of Dallas and I am about to graduate at the end of the year with a focus of modeling. Soo the catch is I want to be productive with this money, IF I spend it at all. Here are some of the options I have been thinking of.
*Listed in order of preference*
- New Laptop!(suggestions welcome)
- Upgrade my desktop (Currently have 3gigs, 32bit Vista, Quadcore, GForce 8300 GT)
- Massive Black Workshop here in Dallas
- Training DVDs
- Don't touch it and pay it back towards my loans
- Save it for after I graduate and need money between school and job
Please suggest anything awesome you would buy that I haven't thought of!
Let me know what you would do and why, I'm trying to do the most useful thing with my monies.
*Listed in order of preference*
- New Laptop!(suggestions welcome)
- Upgrade my desktop (Currently have 3gigs, 32bit Vista, Quadcore, GForce 8300 GT)
- Massive Black Workshop here in Dallas
- Training DVDs
- Don't touch it and pay it back towards my loans
- Save it for after I graduate and need money between school and job
Please suggest anything awesome you would buy that I haven't thought of!
Let me know what you would do and why, I'm trying to do the most useful thing with my monies.
Replies
my advice for you however is to save it for the time between college and job if you want to be able to live during that time without needing a job.
We don't all live in Iowa.
save it, you can live off your fat while you hunt for a job and stay home practicing your skillz
wait...why can't I buy the dvd's now...and use the knowledge from the dvds...to only have to do my portfolio once...
If you have any left over, after getting that job, put it towards a cintiq. Sure as hell a better investment than the stockmarket right now :P
ding ding this is what you SHOULD do, I found out there is nothing worse than having to take a lame job while wanting to do 3d and it sucks all your time.Its easy to get sidetracked and then you find yourself a year or 2 behind actually getting the job you want. I hate the stress of trying to manage all that shit. Training dvds are also good so maybe buy a couple focused on the area you wanna specialize in.
edit: Micro has a stellar point about the tossing the entire school folio after you grad. Some people balk at the mere thought of "wasting" all that work, its not wasted its a stepping stone to becoming better.
the truth is probably at least 80% (go vague random guestiamation) of student portfolios gradding from art school will not net you a job. a grad portfolio is usually pretty easy to spot.
Most people tend to need to put in a lot more of their own personal time after schooling to refine their workflows and get their work up to a really high calibre level. this is ofcourse all null and void if you have a bangin' collection of work right out the gate and snag a job quickly.
you did have a good point about getting the traning materials now and applying lessons learned immediateley to your work as of now. hope you dont take this as being to harsh man. besides obviously any work you do will exponentially increase in quality with each piece right.
cheers dude.
Unless you live rent free, in which case probably learning materials/workshop and student loan payments. Your comp sounds decent enough, so a laptop seems a waste.
If anything, hopefully it will carry you until your next return and you can ride it a little longer.
I had a crap job between school and work, but it was easier to build a portfolio back then, the work was easier.
this
Er. . I mean, save it for after you're out of school. You'll see how helpful it is later.
With $1600 you could build a superb deck to start winning tournaments. Forget all this 3d bullshite. Pokemon is where the real money is.
your exchange rate is going to be rather shit for your dollar though I'm guessing but depends where you are going.
so yeah travelling is cool
last week
Yeah I would personally want to go on holiday and see my cousins in newzealand or something
oh if you have any debts then I would say those should definitely come first.
What card would you suggest?
This way you would still have $1400+ to save away.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834115542
Saving is good and smart and all, but if there are any supplies you can use to make better art it would be foolish to waste this opportunity to acquire them now when you can. You can always make enough money to pay rent and bills, but you cant always afford to buy photoshop or a new laptop or whatever else on top of that.
Of course, "I am about to graduate at the end of the year" doesn't make a lot of sense, considering it is March, but if you are financially secure and feel like buying ANYthing, it should be with your industry profession in mind.
Personally I wouldn't touch it in this economy. If you don't have 6 months+ of income in the bank, that's where you should start.
It won't go very far but its a good start.
Expect to be unemployed for a bit (or longer) after you are done with school. Use this money to keep yourself afloat and cover any expenses that come up as you continue working on your portfolio. And you will continue working on it once it gets shredded by folks here after you pimp it. This is typical amongst most students, and I am not trying to pick on you or belittle your art skills. It's just the brutal truth for most recent graduates.
But having a bit of money in the bank can ease that need to go get an extra crappy job just because it pays decently.
IF you get a job quickly, I'd dump some of that money into the stock market. It's at a five year low, and it will come back up. Gold is a bad buy right now at record high prices. It will come back down. And if the stock market doesn't straighten itself out, you don't need to worry about your 1600 bucks. You'll be busy dodging bullets, molotov coctails, foreign soldiers (or "freedom" fighters), and rabid dogs in the street.
when you make a lump sum payment, you're paying on the principle, after that, the interest/balance of the loan is recalculated, no?
-N
-N
Money is teh sux
what he said.. but id change the drugs liquor and hookers with,
rainbows, sugar, and unicorns
Yeah, that's like, roadtrip for a while money ^_^
The way I understood it was you accumulate interest on loans while you are in school, you can either choose to pay that interest while in school, or wait until you're done and once you start the official payment plan usually 3-6 months after graduation, you first have to pay off the large amount of interest you accrued during school BEFORE starting on the principle.