In a PIX11 Morning News "Financial Fix" segment, financial empowerment coach Ash Exantus from BankMobile shares practical advice to help parents and students avoid going broke at the start of the school year. He emphasizes creating a weekly budget to track money leaks, making a prioritized list of essential purchases, and opting for second‑hand textbooks. Exantus highlights the peer‑to‑peer textbook exchange site bookbyte.com as a way to buy and sell books. He advises students to seek out retailer‑specific student discounts, often advertised through school channels or dedicated websites. To generate extra cash, he suggests selling unused clothing, furniture, or other items on platforms like Craigslist. Finally, he recommends using fee‑free banking services such as BankMobile to avoid ATM and overdraft charges that can quickly erode a student’s finances.
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It's 6:56 in this morning's PIX11 Financial Fix. We're gearing up for back to school with an eye on savings. Joining us this morning is financial empowerment coach Ash Exantus from BankMobile. So nice to have you back, Ash.
Thank you for having me.
So, you know, it's just August 3rd, but you've got some tips for parents and we want to get to them right away. So you're saying students need to prepare as well as parents, right?
Absolutely.
Right now?
Absolutely, right now. So how do we do that? Because, you know, when you think about back to school, it's gonna happen really, really quickly. So it's really about thinking about ways to not go broke while you're going back to school.
So you're talking about planning a weekly budget is the key to managing and saving money.
Absolutely, because those money leaks, they happen really, really fast. So if you're not budgeting yourself, you can go broke and not realize where your money is going. So have a plan, not a restrictive plan, but a plan that tells you exactly where your money is going week by week.
All right, so you said make a list, and of course prioritize. If it's really important to get that computer for your kid or that expensive calculator, Prioritize on what's— where your money is going. Also, college textbooks can be really expensive. You said that there is a way to cut costs. I always thought I'd buy them secondhand.
Absolutely. Secondhand is the way. But think about other students that may have had them. So you can do like switches, even just, just being cognizant of the last, you know, edition maybe.
Oh, that's true.
One that, that you may be able to use.
I didn't hear of bookbyte.com. What's that?
Yeah, so it's a, it's a, it's a peer-to-peer exchange of textbooks. So we're getting savvy. I love that.
So kids— so you can make money on your textbooks too and then use that money to buy new textbooks for the coming year.
Absolutely.
I like that. Retailers will soon start offering students discounts that they can take advantage of. How do I find these discounts?
Absolutely. So, you know, when you go around your school, you know, people know— retailers know that kids don't have too much money, so they'll have, you know, discounts specifically targeted, and they'll find you. They'll advertise in your school. There's websites you can register on.
Oh, I remember that. Remember when you used to go to your mailbox and you'd get hit up for all these, like, promos and stuff like that?
So it's good to know.
All right, students can turn their trash into cash by selling off their clothes and their furniture?
Oh my God, absolutely.
Where do I go?
Students are always impulse shopping. Craigslist, you can put stuff on Craigslist. There's other places that you could just sell things that you don't need anymore that can give you some real big cash.
And banking fees, how do you avoid them?
Oh my God, you got to find a bank like BankMobile that has totally free, does not charge you ATM fees, no overdraft fees, because especially as students, that's what they're prone to. You want to stay away from those as much as possible.
Ash Exantus, thank you so much for joining us. Of course, join us on our PIX11 Financial Fix. You can head on over to pix11.com, click on our news app, and click on our morning news tab to get a complete list of all the helpful hints that were discussed this morning.
