Save More, Worry Less: Financial Wellness Tips Every College Student Needs

On this episode of Speaking of … College of Charleston, we talk about something that impacts every student: money. From tuition and textbooks to coffee runs and weekend plans, managing your finances in college can feel overwhelming. That’s why we’re diving into financial wellness—what it means, why it matters, and how you can take control of your money while you’re here at CofC and beyond. Joining us is Liz Cooper, associate director for financial wellness in the Career Center and Elisa Peñaloza student ambassador. Whether you’re a first-year student or getting ready to graduate, this conversation will help you take control of your finances and set yourself up for long-term success.

Campus Resources:

• iGrad – CofC Financial Literacy Digital Platform (Free for Students, Staff, & Alumni)
• Cougar Pantry – Open to All CofC Students. Currently located at 26 Coming Street
• Cougar Free Store – 207 Calhoun Street, Room 102 (next to Addlestone Library) Open M-Th 10 am – 5 pm

Apps:

• Blackbird – Earn rewards to use at local restaurants
• Class Pass – 1 month Free to try fitness classes at studios in Charleston
• Financial Wellness at the College of Charleston

Transcript

Amy: Welcome to speaking of College of Charleston. I'm your host, Amy Stockwell. Senior Director of Audio Visual Productions, and today we're talking about something that impacts every student money from tuition and textbooks to coffee runs and weekend plans.

Amy: Managing your finances in college can feel overwhelming. That's why we're diving into financial wellness, what it means, why it matters, and how you can take control of your money while you're here at CFC and beyond. Joining us is Liz Cooper, associate Director for Financial Wellness in the Career Center and Elisa Penza, student Ambassador.

Amy: Whether you're a first year student or getting ready to graduate, this conversation will help you take control of your finances and set yourself [00:01:00] up for long-term success. So thank you both for being here. Yeah. Um, so Liz, let's start with you. What does, what, what does financial wellness mean for college students and what's one habit they can start today to achieve it?

Liz: Absolutely. That's a great question. You know, um, we hear a lot about. Like financial literacy, financial wellness, and there's a little bit of a difference between the two. So financial literacy is kind of like all the knowledge and what you understand about it. Financial wellness is kind of really like putting that into practice with your life in like a more holistic sense.

Liz: So for financial wellness, in order to be financially well, the first thing habit that a student could build is just. Tracking their spending. Yeah, so that's one of the major things. You know, people think, oh, I'll build a budget. I'll make this, you know, great spreadsheet. And then they never go back and actually look to see like what they're spending on a daily basis and how it matches up to what they've estimated.

Liz: So just tracking your spending kind of from the very beginning is a very essential habit for financial wellness. 

Amy: Yeah, and we have a student here with us, so I won't [00:02:00] put you on the spot yet, but we wanna make sure we get the student's perspective on how challenging that can be. I mean, it's challenging for me as an adult.

Amy: Oh, absolutely. Um, so what are some common money mistakes you see students making? Well, you know, I mean, 

Liz: students are in a whole new place for the most part. So even, I mean, from freshmen all the way up into sophomores or junior seniors, they're moving constantly. Different things going on in their life. So you're in a different place.

Liz: You're sometimes in an emotional time period in your life. Like adjusting to a new place and, um, you're with new people and so it's really hard for them to kind of like match maybe the way, you know, different things that they've learned growing up and managing money for the first time and just kind of blowing through money is a very easy thing to do here in Charleston.

Liz: Right, right. And then if you add in the fact that you're around new people. You're maybe like missing home or sometimes you're bored. You don't have the same like systems in place going and spending money as an activity and something to [00:03:00] do. And so I see a lot of students who just, when we go back to that thing about tracking your spending, just don't really understand how much they're spending a week and they're going, anytime a friend asks 'em to go somewhere, like it's like, okay, let's go out and go get lunch together.

Liz: Let's go get a coffee together. Yeah, let's go to a concert. Let's go shopping on King Street and all of those things. You know, while fun activities add up really, really fast, and so I think that's one of. The biggest mistakes that I see students making from the beginning is not just trying to like hone in on what is a reasonable amount for them to spend so that they don't like get themselves in that situation.

Liz: I mean, when you say that's probably true, yeah, I definitely feel that. Just and, and explain before, um, explain your role as a student ambassador. Of course. What does that mean exactly? 

Elisa: Yes. So I'm Elisa and I work as a financial wellness student ambassador. And basically what I do in my role is we go out and we table and we talk to students.

Elisa: We also help Liz out with the workshops. And basically what we're there for [00:04:00] is to provide a student perspective on what it means to be financially savvy and to have that financial wellness information. We kind of give a unique perspective to students because we know what it's like to be in that situation and what it's like to have to budget your money and save it because we've been through it.

Elisa: I mean, I've, I'm a senior this year and it's definitely been hard more this year, more than other years because I'm living off campus this year. So, um, kind of going back to what Liz said, just tracking your money makes such a big difference because it really gives you insight to know. What you're spending on and how much you should be limiting yourself for the future.

Amy: And I think there's, so this is, I didn't write this question down, but I, I think for so many people, finances can be so shame inducing and emotional, and not for everybody, but, but some people come from families that have a lot of. A conflict or tension around finances. And so I think a lot of the reason that they don't look at their budget is because they don't wanna know.

Amy: Yeah. You know, once you start adding stuff up, it's like, you know, oh, you don't wanna [00:05:00] know how much you're spending on coffee a week or whatever. 

Liz: Oh, absolutely. And that's one of the things we kind of try to talk about when we do our. Presentations. I, we do presentations in class, we do workshops and we try to also like talk to students on campus just with our money.

Liz: Mondays tabling. It's a very kind of casual thing and the, we feel like the more we talk about money, the more normal that it makes it. And we talk about our own backgrounds and our own, you know, our family experiences and how, um, it was a very difficult. Thing for me to talk about for a long time. But just like with anything, I think there's a lot of power in education.

Liz: Mm-hmm. So, I mean, that's like another essential habit of financial wellness is just educating yourself. So like finding out what you don't know and realizing that it's not a perfect thing to achieve and that you're. It's something to work on and we all can start somewhere, but everybody, you know, there's a lot of things that we learn in college that not everybody has to do.

Liz: Everyone has to manage their money right at some point in their life, and that can make a difference between like the kind of life you're able to live. And so it's just like, I think once you know that, and the more you allow yourself to talk about it and learn about it, it takes a little bit of that.

Liz: [00:06:00] Fear away. Right. At least that's how it's worked for me. 

Amy: and what are the, you're gonna head off to do a workshop right after this? After we leave the studio. Is that a money Monday Matters workshop, or what are you doing? 

Liz: So today we're actually helping out with student wellness and wellbeing.

Liz: So another way we try to get out like information about just is collaborating with another, a lot of other people on campus. So today, student wellness and wellness being is doing a mindset reset. Because it's, um, we're in midterms and things like that, so we're doing a, a Hope rocks activity where they can paint a rock, but we talk to them about money or just think about like, what's the thing, something you wanna focus on or what's like a, a power word or something that you can do to like, make you think of like.

Liz: I mean, I always say like for me, budgeting, financial, knowing about my financials is a freedom to me. Right. And so like just trying to encourage them to do something that would make maybe be encouraging to them for like the rest of the semester about like something that they can improve on. Right? Yeah.

Amy: Yeah. That's great. Um, and, and so for, I'm gonna skip one question 'cause I think we kind of covered it, but for students who are. Dependent on loans who are using loans, what are some tips that you can share [00:07:00] on, um, borrowing smart so that they graduate, you know, without a big, a whole lot of debt on their plate?

Amy: Right. 

Liz: Yeah. So, um, you know, first of all, the one thing that we talk about, I do a student loans workshop or whenever I talk to loans with loans is when we talked about the thing about some things about money or shameful. And there's a lot of talk about loans and like on the news, right? And lots of different things.

Liz: Um, you know, people borrow money for lots of different reasons to achieve a lot of different goals. And student loans are just, just that one goal is education. You know, you might borrow money later to buy a house or to buy a car, so it's not really anything different than that. You're trying to do this to achieve your education, so there's no like, shame in that and, um, this is helping you get there.

Liz: Um, the other thing that I try to tell students is. Always know what you're borrowing. So a large portion of students nationwide do not know how much they've borrowed from semester to semester or year to year. Educate yourself. There's again, that part. Student aid.gov has a great, uh, student loan simulator that tells you, keeps track of exactly what you've borrowed to date.

Liz: If you have federal student [00:08:00] loans, if you have private student loans, there are plenty of loan sim simulators online that you can use to help you keep track of it, see what the interest is gonna be, educate yourself about what the payments look like, and realizing that. You do not have to borrow more than you need.

Liz: So getting a handle, like with the budgeting of borrowing, just what you need, they will give you plenty of loan companies will give you plenty more. Um, and that might be something that you take to like spend on a vacation while you're in college or something like that. I don't recommend borrowing for that purpose.

Liz: Borrow what you need for education. Um, think about ways. Um, I know like Elisa spent a lot of time trying to find an apartment that was really within her budget. Mm-hmm. So she was able to find a place on the peninsula that was about $500 less per month than the average student pays, just from looking around and kind of being open-minded with that.

Liz: So I think like trying to cut, get a handle on your expenses, keeping your expenses lower so then you don't have to borrow as much. But, um. You know, I, I hear a lot of students say, I'll just worry about that when I graduate. Right. I'll think about that when I graduate. Well. You know, this goes into like what you're gonna be paying back, what kind of salary you need to have.

Liz: [00:09:00] This might affect the cost of like, where you're able to live because of your cost of living. So I think, um, getting a handle, knowing exactly what you're owing, exactly what you're borrowing, and trying to mitigate that maybe by keeping your cost down, getting a part-time job, trying to alleviate, like having to borrow more.

Liz: Right. 'cause that's gotta be so tempting to borrow. To borrow just a little bit extra, extra money. Oh, absolutely. Some fun money. So, yeah, so like here, and a lot of students don't know that you don't have to borrow as much as they say that you're approved for. Mm-hmm. Or that even you have like 30 to 60 days based on the loan company to return it, to return unused funds.

Liz: Without having to pay any interest or penalty on that. So, I mean, that's something too, to take into account and consider that. Um, yeah, just like, don't, don't take anymore. 'cause there's a lot of interest on that over time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, um, Elisa, to return to the student's perspective, first of all, congratulations on finding a less expensive place on the peninsula.

Elisa: That's Oh, thank you. It was definitely hard. That's challenging. You know, I had to fight now in tooth for, for that spot, but, you know, it was worth it and it fits right in my budget. So, good for you to. To make things work with, with the spot I got. [00:10:00] So what are some other tips, um, that you can offer students for enjoying life, um, on campus and in the city of Charleston without blowing their budgets?

Elisa: Yeah, and I'm so glad you asked because I feel that I'm very knowledgeable about all the different things, and thankfully we live in such an amazing city like Charleston that offers a few more resources compared to. Um, the other big cities in the state, I come from Columbia, and so I definitely would say that Charleston, just as a city, is a lot more walkable and there's a lot more things that you can do for free.

Elisa: For example, you can go visit a park or just take a walk with your friends down to the battery, and that is very low cost. And I know that for a lot of students who are in their first year or their second year. They don't really have the resources to get off of the Peninsula and go to all the stores that they wanna go to.

Elisa: But thankfully we have, uh, resources like the Carta Bus, which students can ride for free with their career card. That's great. It, it'll take you anywhere. I mean, you can go to North Charleston, west Ashley, Mount Pleasant. You [00:11:00] go to Walmart and it'll bring you right back the airport too. Mm-hmm. I think it takes you to the airport, right?

Elisa: Yeah. It'll take you too. It'll take you honestly, pretty far. And I used to use that a lot. This is the first year that I've had a car on campus, but even then, it was never really a worry or a struggle for me. I also think that on the college of campus, um, college of Charleston campus, we have a lot of resources that are really great that are.

Elisa: Uh, funded by the school. For example, we have the Coer Pantry, which has no limits on how much food you can come and get. You don't have to, um, you know, be a student in need to go and get food from the Coer Pantry. Yeah. Talk a little bit more about that. 'cause that's, I think, a fantastic resource that I think a lot of people don't know about.

Elisa: Yeah. So right now the pantry is, it used to be placed in stern, but right now with all the stern renovations going on, they actually have it on coming street. And what it is, is. It's just a house you can go in and they have a variety of food items, canned food items. They have toiletries, um, toothbrushes, mouthwash, that's great.

Elisa: Body soap. And you know, you can go in and get what you want. There's no shame. No one's [00:12:00] gonna. Um, tell you you can't take that amount and you can just take what you need. And they're also accepting donations, so you know, if you ever have anything extra, you can go and donate it to the pantry. Another great resource we have is the free Cougar Closet, which is, uh, right next to the library on Calhoun Street.

Elisa: And that's another great resource because you can go in, get some free clothes. They have kitchen, um, utilities. Um, just a lot of great items, shoes, anything and kind of similar to the pantry. You just go in, sign out what you need, and then take what you need from that. Um, also just clubs and organizations on campus are also a great resource for students who might not have meal plans.

Elisa: They can go and get some free food, join a club, go and do a free activity, and do that with friends. I think that that's a great way not only to make friends, but also to save a few extra bucks. And also I think that Charleston just has some really great discount apps. I've really been loving this app called Blackbird, which is is, oh, somebody was just talking about that this morning.

Elisa: Yeah. It's so amazing and I think it's a great resource for a lot of students. I [00:13:00] honestly, they should hire me as a promoter because the way that I've been talking about this app sponsor you did episode I got, but basically it's an app that has a variety of restaurants here in Charleston. So for someone like me who.

Elisa: Has to budget in order to go and eat out because I just love eating out and there's so many amazing restaurants here. It basically gives you credit to go to these restaurants, huh? And use it and not spend all your money. Or they might have an extra special deal where, you know, you go and buy a drink and you can get a free burger or a free meal out of it.

Elisa: Um, and that's called Blackbird. And we'll put all of these resources in our show notes for listeners. Um, they're only active in three cities and thankfully for us, Charleston is one of those cities. So definitely a great resource not only for students, for staff as well. Um, also class pass for students who like doing like workout classes around the peninsula, they can go and do like a freer discounted class at different studios around the peninsula.

Elisa: So that's really great resource as well. 

Amy: Yeah. Thank you for sharing those. Those are fantastic. Um, and, and what about on. From the, from [00:14:00] your office, the Office of Financial Wellness, what resources or, or talk me through. Mm-hmm. Like if a student wanted to come and talk to you, what are the steps that they would, what are the expectations?

Amy: What are the, what are the steps they should take when they come? 

Liz: Oh, yeah. So we offer a lot of different things. I mean, students can make a one-on-one appointment with me through, um, we make appointments through Handshake, but we also have links to that on our website and our website. But then we also have, I grad our financial.

Liz: Literacy digital platform. Okay. And that's a way students can like build their financial knowledge on their own. Do you wanna talk a little bit about that? 'cause you've used I grad Yeah. A good bit. Yeah. 

Elisa: And so I, grad is a program that is actually funded by the school and every student has access to it.

Elisa: As soon as they log into my portal, they're able to just look it up. And I, grad is basically, um, kind of like a budgeting and saving platform. They have budgeting tools on there for students who have never budgeted before. Huh. They have a lot of short. Form videos kind of similar to like a TikTok or something.

Elisa: You can watch a video for like a minute long, and it's personalized, so you can look up specific topics that you're interested in learning more about. Maybe you're saving to buy a car or renting your first apartment. They have specific videos and modules on all of that. Not only [00:15:00] that, but you can also use it to.

Elisa: Find out your money personality, find out what type of spender you are. Huh. And just find out more about how you're spending and using that. And also, another really neat thing that I like about I grad is that the more you use the platform, you actually get points and there's chances for you to win.

Elisa: Prizes win up to like a thousand dollars, and I think they ruffle that off like every week, so, oh, that's great. Very cool. Yeah. Thank you. Um, so let's, one more, one question that could go to either of you. What's, um, just gonna wrap this up. What's one myth about financial wellness for college students that you would like to change?

Elisa: Um, 

Liz: I guess I'll start with this and then you can chime in. Maybe. Um, I think for me, a lot of, you know, when we're out. Talking to students and trying to get them interested in what we're doing, or, um, show that we're a resources, just that like, oh, I'll worry about that later. Or totally, you know, um, you know, oh yeah, I'm not that great with money, so I'll worry about that later.

Liz: I mean, I feel like you're. Students are in the best environment right now. 'cause you're still kind of somewhat sheltered. I mean, a lot of students are, some students are fully on their own, fully supporting themselves, but some students still have a little bit of support. Mm-hmm. If not from their family.

Liz: They might have [00:16:00] scholarships or something that's helping them out right now. Um, and we're in this supportive environment. We are free. This is a time that like, you know, we provide all of this free personal financial advice and education that they'd have to pay somebody for later. Um, and it's also, this is the best time.

Liz: And when they graduate, they're gonna have to be thinking about this. And they're making decisions now. That are gonna affect their future financial life. I mean, wouldn't you say that that's true? 

Elisa: Yeah, and I think that's some great insight because as a student, I feel that we run into a lot of students who don't think it's important to budget or just not focusing on their money.

Elisa: And to those students, I would say get started now, especially early on. Um, you know, as a freshman you wanna get started. Open up your first credit card maybe and start building that credit. Start building up those good habits and start saving because it'll really benefit you in the long term, uh, whenever you wanna buy a car or you wanna buy a house, to have that credit already set up.

Elisa: And not only that, but also start looking into investing. Um, options, you know, that doesn't mean you have to [00:17:00] be a pro at stocks. Mm-hmm. And, you know, know your way around that, but maybe looking into different investing options or even, you know, simple things like opening up a different sort of savings account, a high yield saving account.

Elisa: It can make all the difference. Just a few dollars a month in your bank will, you know, really help you make that wealth and continue learning more about financial wellness. 

Liz: Yeah. And there's a lot of, you know, a lot of expenses that come up. When you graduate, and we also run into like emergencies, you know, things like, you know, your laptop could break or something, and maybe your parents aren't gonna be able to help you with that.

Liz: And it's good to have like that money to fall back on so you're not then putting it on a credit card and then adding to your debt load. So, I mean, those are just kinds of things I think that students think like, oh, I'm, you know, focused very much on school and this is what I'm here for. Then again, you know, um, everybody has to manage money, you know, and that's something that they have.

Liz: To learn how to do. Um, and then as they're approaching jobs, you know, looking at the cost of living in different areas, all of these things will become more natural to them if they start focusing on that now. Right. And they'll start looking at like [00:18:00] the salaries compared to what the cost is to live there and those sorts of things.

Liz: So I think it's the biggest myth we see is just that it's just not something that you need to worry about Now when it. Something that really they should have already been thinking about before they came here. So yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's a great tip. 

Amy: I think it always reminds me of Scarlet O'Hara.

Amy: Yeah. You know, being like, oh, I'll worry about that. Or tomorrow. Yeah, tomorrow's another day. Tomorrow's another day. Yeah. But it's not, yeah, it starts today, right. Yeah. Well, thank you both so much for coming in the studio. Is there anything else that I'm, um. That I haven't asked you that you think students would wanna know about your office 

Amy: Yeah, I just think like, you know, 

Amy: we, like we said, we're, so, we do Money Mondays where we're either in Cougar Mall or Rivers Green from 11 to one every Monday. We do several workshops a month. All of that's on our events are on Handshake. Um, we also send out emails about that and they can make appointments through Handshake.

Amy: We have a lot of resources and links to our resources on the, um, career center financial wellness tab on our hub page and on the website. Um, but yeah, we're pretty much, we're always around. We've got our [00:19:00] green shirts on all the time. Mm-hmm. Um, and we're always happy to chat with anybody, so. That's great.

Amy: Yeah. Yeah. Start today. 

Elisa: Just the biggest advice we'd give everyone is, you know, save more and worry less. Yeah. 

Amy: Yes. Save more and worry less. That's great. Yeah. Put that on a logo on a t-shirt. Yeah. Is that what it says? It does. We'll include a picture of that in the show notes. So thank you. Um, thank you to everyone for listening to this episode of.

Amy: Speaking of College of Charleston with our guests, Liz Cooper and Elisa Penalosa. Please help us reach more listeners by sharing this podcast with a friend or leaving a review. And for show notes and more episodes, visit the College of Charleston's official news site, the College today, at today.charleston.edu.

Amy: This episode was produced by Amy Stockwell with recording and sound engineering from your audio visual productions team. Thank you.

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