How To Be Productive Over Winter Break

The end of the semester is looming and Christmas is on the horizon. Once you get past the last major obstacle of final exams, all you want to do is take a well-deserved break. While winter break is a good time to catch up on sleep and hanging out with friends, remain productive by following these tips:

Tune up your resume. Over the past semester, you’ve probably joined a few new clubs, gained more experience, and hopefully raised your GPA. Winter break is a good time to update your resume.

Apply for summer internships/jobs. Once you’ve beefed up that resume, put it to work and start applying for summer internships and full-time positions (perhaps intern at a Personal Injury Law Office). Life gets hectic during the semester so winter break is a good time to fill out those applications. By the time April rolls around and you’ve landed yourself a position, you’ll be thanking yourself.

Get a winter job. You’ll likely have a lot of free time on your hands, so see if you can land a job over the break. Many department stores hire extra workers for the holidays, so a seasonal positional is a great opportunity to help bring in some extra cash.

Set goals for next semester. It’s a good idea to set specific goals that you want to accomplish for the spring semester so that you have a target to shoot for right from the get-go. In addition, it helps to reflect over the past semester to figure out what went well and what didn’t.

Do something you wanted to do during the semester. If there was anything you really wanted to do last semester but didn’t have time for, do it over winter break. Whether it’s going on a road trip or simply reading a novel, take advantage of your free time to accomplish it. You’ll feel more rejuvenated by the time spring semester begins.

Winter break may give you a rest from classes and studying, but a little foresight and effort goes a long way to making the most of your break.

Who Said Giving Gift Cards For Christmas Is Tacky?

What do Americans ask for the most each Christmas season? Not clothes or electronics –the most popular gifts requested are actually gift cards. The demand is so high that a secondary market has emerged: gift card exchange.

Essentially, these markets are online sites that purchase unused/unwanted gift cards from consumers in exchange for cash payouts. They then sell the gift cards they obtain for discounted prices. You can typically get up to 75% of the value in cash for the piece plastic that’s been sitting in your drawer since last year. So using gift card exchange sites can be a helpful method to stretch your holiday budget.  Especially for cash strapped college students. Here are a few tips:

Make sure you use reputable websites. Well known gift card exchange sites often have the best deals on cards and offer services like free shipping and money-back guarantees. Using reputable sites also reduces the potential for gift card fraud drastically. Markets such as CardPool.com, CardCash.com, and GiftCardGranny.com are safe bets. Avoid injury by avoiding sites such as Craigslist and relatively unknown websites.

Consider going specific vs. general. Yes, it’s usually easiest to go with a Visa or Mastercard prepaid that can be used anywhere, but these cards are also the most expensive – they usually carry an activation fee around $5. On the other hand, gift cards for specific stores usually do not have this fee.

Popular cards give the least bang for your buck. As would be expected, the most popular cards have the smallest discounts on gift card exchange sites. On average, discounts on cards from retailers such as Wal-Mart, Target, and Toys R Us averaged less than 5%. Compare this to cards from Petco, which averaged 16% off, and Cold Stone Creamery, which were discounted by 23%.

Time your purchase for the best deals. Don’t purchase gift cards too early so that the buying protection period doesn’t waste away. A good rule of thumb is to buy cards a week in advance. Also, for the biggest savings, buy gift cards in January. People are bound to receive cards they don’t like, so a few weeks after Christmas is the peak period for exchanges.

Gift card exchanges are new to most people, but by doing a little research you can save a ton of money this holiday season. You can even make money by exchanging a card you were given for a store you never go to. But unfortunately, you still can’t exchange the sweater Grandma knitted for you!