Some Tips About Upromise and Sallie Mae

So a few years ago I opened a Upromise account to get a head start on saving for my kids college. It's somewhat like Ebates. You get a percentage of what you spend online put into an account that you can use to pay off student loans, or pay tuition and other college expenses. There are a few other ways of earning money too. Sometimes there are surveys you can take, you can earn money back on dining, groceries, etc. Originally this money was to be for the kids' college fund, but then my husband went back to school and had to take out some loans, so I wanted to the money I've earned to pay off his loans first. His loan was already linked to the account, but there was not an option online for me to transfer money as payment towards his loan. I called the number listed on the website: 1-888-434-9111 (Whatever you do, do not call that number.)

The person I talked to at Upromise said they had to transfer me to Sallie Mae. Fine.

The second person I talked to said I was not authorized to information related to his account. Fine, talk to him. Why would I be trying to pay off his student loan if I am not his wife? He promptly gave them permission, because that means I'll take care of it and he doesn't need to worry about it. After I got back on the phone they transferred me to someone else because they were not authorized to transfer payments.

The third person I talked to was kind of confused and transferred me to someone else. He said that I needed to link the two accounts together before I could do anything and I should try making a payment online. If that had been a possibility I would not have bothered calling.

The fourth person I talked to was also confused and tried to tell me that I couldn't access the loan information, before changing their mind about it. There is no information that she could give me that I couldn't access myself from the Sallie Mae website. She transferred me to someone else.

The fifth person I talked to tried to give me all of the same bologna that the other incompetent people gave me, before deciding that I needed to call Upromise. "I did call Upromise, and they transferred me to three other people before you." "Oh, well just a minute." She gave me a different number to call. 39 minutes of my life wasted. And guess where the number she gave me sent me?

A Ford dealership. No, I'm pretty sure that they can help me about as much as the fools at Sallie Mae. Later my husband asked me a question about the account. I told him that the people at Sallie Mae were idiots. "Well, at least they are using the money we are paying in interest to provide jobs for the handicapped."

I went back to the Upromise website and found a different number. 1-800-877-6647. After talking to the guy for a few minutes, he set it up so at the beginning of the next quarter all my money will be transferred over to the student loan, and every quarter when there is a balance of at least $10, that money will be applied to the student loan also. Hallelujah! $689 down, some odd thousand left to go. Why couldn't I have talked to that guy in the first place?

Lessons learned:

• Call Sallie Mae at your own peril and only if you are interested in being transferred around in circles and hoping to waste a lot of time.
• Some customer support numbers listed on websites are better than others. The one that actually spells the name of the company is usually a safe bet.

Saving Money on Textbooks

College textbooks are a racket. You all know it's true. But they are often vital to successfully move forward towards your career. (My first semester of nursing school I paid over $800 (and that was several years ago) for textbooks from my campus bookstore and I got most of them used. And then I didn't even use about half of them. Murg. Like I said, it's a racket.) Despite what some college bookstores would like you to think, buying online is a FANTASTIC option. This fall my husband is going back to school. He ordered all of his textbooks from Amazon.com. Amazon charged $102 for used textbooks vs. $220 for used textbooks from our local college bookstore, and he got all of them  delivered within one week. When I was in college my campus bookstore really like to push the idea that getting your textbooks online would prevent you from being successful in your classes, you'd get the wrong book, it would be late, or other such problems. Not if you're smart about it. (Then when their scare tactics didn't work, they just wouldn't release the textbook lists until after school had already started, so then you really were more likely to get your books late. :S)  Don't fall for those tactics. College is expensive enough. Here are some helpful tips to make sure you get what you are looking for and save some money too.

1. Shop by the ISBN number! It will be a 13 digit number located above the bar code of the book. Every book has one. Often classes will provide this number in your syllabus or in some correspondence to you before class starts. Remember there are numerous books with the same title, and multiple editions, especially with textbooks. Searching by the ISBN helps you to make sure you are getting the correct book and edition.
2. Give yourself time.-Order your books as soon as you can, to make sure you get what you need by the time you need. Usually you want to give yourself two weeks for delivery.
3. Look at the ratings of the seller. Amazon Marketplace is a great place to purchase used textbooks. But look at the feedback that previous customers give on the seller. They can usually tell you if the seller follows through and ships their items in a timely manner. Happy customers like to tell other people about their good experience. Also take into account that there are people out there who like to complain instead of take responsibility for their own stupidity. 'This seller gets a 1-star rating because this is not the book I wanted.' Even if it was the correct book for the ISBN #.  Angry costumers are even more likely to let people know how they feel. Many good sellers may still have a few 1 or 2 star ratings. Look at their overall ratings over time or their percentage of positive feedback.
4. You can trust Amazon proper. Although they have a smaller selection of used textbooks. I have on rare occasion known people who have had problems with something they ordered from Amazon, wrong item, it was damaged in shipping, etc. But everyone who contacted Amazon had the problem fixed, either Amazon replaced the item or gave the customer a large discount. I have used other textbook websites with mixed results. Amazon takes away so much hassle.
5. And of course, buy used when you can.

  Between my husband's and my own time in college using these tips has saved us thousands of dollars.

And right now Amazon is offering a great deal to college students. If you go to the Amazon Student page, you can get a free membership to Amazon Prime for one year. Amazon Prime gives you free unlimited 2-day shipping with no minimum order size. Amazon is also offering deals on many back to school essentials beyond the books. Check out their savings on clothes, school supplies and stuff for the dorm.

Disclaimer- Yes, Amazon does give me a very small fee for putting their banner on this post. But I wouldn't promote them if what I said weren't true. I love Amazon. I have snagged many great deals there, they sell quality products and they are reliable. Shopping through Amazon makes my life easier.

Upromise- start saving for your children's college without having to think about it

Previously I gave a list of websites that I use to save money, but I didn't go into a lot of detail on each. So I'll expand on them some more.
 One website I use is Upromise. Signing up is free, and how it works is this site advertises various businesses and when you use those businesses, they donate a percentage of what you spend to your account. Now by advertising, the businesses are trying to get your money, because hey that's what business is about. And I'm not sure, but they probably can write off the money they donate as a charitable contribution because it goes toward education.
 To make this work for you, just buy the things you were going to buy anyway and get a percentage back. Spending a dollar to get 13 cents back doesn't make any sense.  But if you planned on spending that dollar on something you need, why not get 13% back? Websites that I've used include The Children's Place, Old Navy, Barnes & Noble, Verizon, and 1800Contacts to name a few, but they have an enormous list to choose from. If you don't want to have to go to the Upromise site first every time you shop online, you can download a little gadget that alerts you whenever you are visiting a participating site. Thus you are saving money for college without thinking about it.
  You can also get money back from what you spend at the grocery store if you register you Smiths's or Albertson's cards with them. There's not a huge payoff there, but a few free dollars back. The site offers rebates on hotel, travel, furniture, restaurants, purchasing a home, subscriptions, with rebates ranging between 1-20%. Plus they often have coupon codes that are not found in other places.
  I've had my account for about a year and a half and have saved $500, which by the time my daughter gets to college will probably cover a semester's worth of books, if I'm lucky. But I still have a long time to save and really I would have spent money on those various things anyway, so why not get $500 back?