I came across an interesting map on Digg today. It lists the average student loan debt by state in the US.

One thing you quickly notice is that the east coast states, and particularly the northeast states, have higher student loan debt averages. I’m from the northeast and went to college in the northeast, so it’s not really much of a surprise to me. The top schools in the northeast are pretty much all private universities, unlike out here in California, where the state school system is a lot better and where several top universities are public.

The map also lists the most expensive universities in the US, based on 2008-2009 tuition estimates.

1. Sarah Lawrence College | $53,166
2. George Washington University | $50,312
3. New York University | $50,182
4. Georgetown University | $49,689
5. Connecticut College | $49,385
6. Bates College | $49,350
7. Johns Hopkins University | $49,278
8. Skidmore College | $49,266
9. Scripps College | $49,236
10. Middlebury College | $49,210
11. Carnegie Mellon University | $49,200
12. Boston College | $49,020
13. Wesleyan University | $49,000
14. Colgate University | $48,900
15. Claremont McKenna College | $48,755
16. Vassar College | $48,675
17. Haverford College | $48,625
18. University of Chicago | $48,588
19. Union College (NY) | $48,552
20. Colby College | $48,520
21. Mount Holyoke College | $48,500
22. Tufts University | $48,470
23. Bard College at Simon’s Rock | $48,460
24. Franklin & Marshall College | $48,450
25. Bard College | $48,438

Syracuse University didn’t make the list, but it’s not far off at $45,940 a year.

I decided tonight to make use of some of the tools available with Mint. I compared my monthly spending on repaying my student loans with the rest of Mint users in the US.

Here are the sad results:

Ugh. Either I’m paying back too much or I need to find some new hobbies to spend my money on.

It’s been a while since I posted some money saving tips. I’ll make this one a short list of simple rules I live by (or try to live by).

Keep Track of Your Spending

I can’t stress this one enough. Set personal spending budgets and stick to them. It’s really easy if you avoid paying for things with cash and instead use credit and debit cards. It’s even easier if you use an online money management tool, like Mint.com, that will keep track of your purchases for you and keep tally of your budgets. Mint even has an iPhone app that lets you check your budgets, account balances and transactions when you’re away from a computer. This can come in handy if you’re out and about and tempted to buy something, but not sure if it will put you over your set budget.

Ask yourself “do I really need this?”

Once you’ve checked your spending budget and verified that you have some available, make sure you ask yourself “do I really need this thing?” I do this every time I’m about to make a non-essential purchase. About half the time the answer to my own question is “no, I don’t need this 12 piece ShamWow set.” I call this the Woot dilemma. I check woot.com almost everyday, and I’m tempted to buy the daily random item each time (except for maybe the Roombas). But do I really need any of that stuff? Of course not. In fact, I’ve been checking woot daily for about four years and I’ve only purchased one item — a pair of Woot-Off lights — because, yes, I did need them.

Compare prices, find deals

When you do have to buy something, do your research to find the best possible price and the best possible product. The Internet makes this so easy. I usually start with Google Product Search, and then from there see which of the lowest priced products I can save even more money on with Fatwallet.com coupons and cash back. The Fatwallet forums are also a great place to find deals.

Disclaimer: I interned at Fatwallet for a Summer while in college, so I might be a bit biased. There are other similar sites as well, but you don’t need to worry about them

There’s nothing wrong with peanut butter and jelly

Just make sure you buy good peanut butter. I can’t stress that enough.

Do it yourself

Don’t pay for unnecessary services that you can do yourself.

• Wash your own car
• Fix your own appliances
• Cut your own hair (carefully!)
• Perform your own surgery! (maybe not this one)

That’s all I have for tonight. Hmm, this blog post started out useful and rapidly fell apart. I really need to stop doing these late night posts.

I attended Syracuse University. It’s a private university in upstate New York. That’s why I’m in debt close to $80,000 right now. But for one night, that debt was well worth it.

Syracuse beat UConn tonight in the 6th overtime of a quarterfinal game in the Big East tournament. That’s right, a 6th overtime. The game went so long that both teams had to bring in walk ons because so many players had fouled out of the game. The final score was 127 – 117. Jonny Flynn had an epic night. Hands down the best basketball I’ve ever seen. Check out the highlights and stats.

This certainly wasn’t the first epic Syracuse vs. UConn Big East tournament game. There was of course the McNamara shot in 2006.