Instead of being careless with your money for the next ten years, get a head start by taking charge of your financial future right out of the gate. Take a look at some of the most beneficial money saving tips for college graduates.

1.  Know Your Goals

In order to save money, you need to know what you plan on doing with your money once it starts flooding (hopefully) your bank account. When you graduate college, you may not have the complete direction for your life mapped out – who does?

Although you can’t totally control your future, or who will offer you a job, one thing you can control is the development of your goals.

How much do you actually need to live on? What standard of living are you comfortable with? When should you learn about 401ks and IRAs? Is it ever too early to think about saving for your future? What kind of car do you see yourself driving?

The answers to these questions will undoubtedly direct your future – and they shouldn’t be ignored.

It’s important to establish your long-term and short-term goals so you will be able to maintain order of your finances both now and in the future. Developing a post-college financial plan is one of the best decisions you can make.

2.  Stay In Control of Your Educational Debt

Another great strategy for saving money is to pay down your educational debt as soon as possible. And since many student loans don’t require repayment until after graduation, paying your loan debt is probably a new concept – one that has dire consequences if it’s pushed to the back burner.

Although making the minimum student loan payments is required, paying more than the minimum each month will help those loans vanish quicker. Not everyone will be able to double their monthly student loan payment, but remembering to include your student loan repayment into your post-graduation budget will help you stay in control and help build your credit.

3.  Adjust Your Financial Perspectives

It’s a mental game – the way you think about and approach your finances will go a long way in helping you save the money you earn. While college offers more freedom, most students live in a relatively safe bubble of existence while earning their degrees.

When you’re a student, all of mom and dad’s money seems to get labeled as disposable. You tend not to notice the money that pays for school or books or food; it’s almost as if college has tricked you into thinking money is easy to get and will always be there.

But once you start earning your own income, paying your own bills, and taking care of yourself financially, your financial perspectives should change accordingly. The income you earn should be respected enough to develop wise strategies for managing, saving, spending, and even investing.

4.  Keep Your Spending In Check

One of the most responsible decisions you can make when it comes to your post-college financial landscape is to re-define your wants and needs. When you can eliminate self-deception and honestly separate your needs from your wants, you will take charge of your income and graduate into responsible adulthood.

Without gaining control of your spending, you’ll soon find yourself trapped within debt wondering where you went wrong. Instead of searching for tips in ten years about how to get out of debt, appreciate the benefits of financial responsibility and spend wisely today.

5.  Seek Advice and Learn From Others

The last bit of advice for saving money as you begin your life after college is something you’re already doing if you’re reading this article – don’t be too proud to seek wise financial advice from family, friends, or other respectable outlets.

Research the topics that you don’t understand, get help with the areas that you struggle with, and always be teachable when it comes to your bank account. None of us make the right decisions 100% of the time. But what separates the wise from the unwise is the humility to know when you need help. Never stop learning and never stop saving.

Below, we explore several different approaches to savings (and the pros and cons of each) to help you pick the right one.

Sporadic Savings

Sporadic savings is the default approach of most individuals. In lieu of any specific plan or system, they simply put various amounts of money away at random times when it’s convenient. There are any number of reasons why this is not the ideal approach. Over the long term, it is sabotaged by human nature, our reluctance to delay gratification, and the overall lack of consistency inherent in the approach.

That said, there are some people who would be well-served by sporadic savings. For those with irregular or unpredictable income (say, freelancers) putting money away randomly is infinitely better than not saving at all. Likewise, individuals living paycheck-to-paycheck on extremely tight budgets should certainly save when they can if the only other option is not saving. That said, sporadic savings should be seen as a temporary “stopgap” solution, used only to tide you over until you have steadier income.

Scheduled Savings

The polar opposite of sporadic savings is scheduled savings. As the name implies, this refers to any savings system that is automated, such that a fixed amount of money is being saved each month or pay period. This approach is vastly superior because it removes guesswork and volition from the process. Essentially, savings comes to mirror an assembly line that functions like clockwork to gradually build your wealth.

Scheduled savings is ideal for anyone whose income is both steady and sizeable. If you have excess cash left over after paying your routine bills (and other obligations like retirement, investments, etc.) then you are a prime candidate to set up an automated savings transfer at your bank and let it work for you.

Purpose-Driven Savings

Purpose-driven savings is a hybrid approach. Its defining feature is not the regularity or the amount of savings—depending on the person, these could vary. Rather, purpose-driven savings is about why you save. Very simply, not everyone is motivated by the abstract goal of “savings.” To them, the typical reasons for saving (security, stability, etc.) are just obstacles to buying what they want right now. Instead, these people are much more likely to put money away for specific and compelling reasons: a down payment on their dream home, or their college tuition, for instance.

With purpose-driven savings, your goal is so powerful and appealing that simply thinking about it is enough to make you sacrifice for it. This overcomes the lack of intrinsic motivation to just “save” for its own sake.

The Envelope System

Another solid option for those who find themselves lacking in natural motivation to save is the envelope system. This approach works because of its simplicity. Each month, you decide how much you are willing to spend in each area of your life: bills, entertainment, food, etc.

After doing so, you put those amounts in envelopes that belong to each category. Once you spend each envelope’s contents, you are prohibited from spending anything more in that category until you get paid again and replenish it.

The envelope system is best suited to those who are not naturally “wired” to handle their money. Instead of forcing themselves to mentally juggle their money and responsibilities, the envelopes spell out their spending decisions for them, allowing you to buy whatever you want in each category as long as you only spend the allotted amount.

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By making these small changes today, you can have a big impact on the year and, should they stick, a lasting impact on your life.

Tweak Your Withholding

If you get a tax refund check each year, you might want to tweak your withholding and stop giving Uncle Sam an interest free loan each year. The average tax refund last year was nearly three thousand dollars – would you like an extra $250 of your own money in your own pocket each month? Of course you would. Use the IRS’s withholding calculator to find out how you can adjust your answers on the W-4.

Exercise More

This is a common New Year’s resolution but it definitely pays to start exercising more and taking better care of your body. People who lose weight and increase their fitness level report having more energy and better moods. It can have a positive financial effect too, as life insurance rates drop for people who are healthier.

Try a New Hobby

A new year means new opportunity, why not make this year the year you try something new? Maybe there’s a hobby you’ve always wanted to try but just couldn’t find the time? When choosing a hobby, be sure to find a way to “test” it out before you throw yourself 100% at it. Some hobbies require a lot of up front cost while others can be introduced little by little. The last thing you want is additional clutter from all the abandoned hobbies you tried!

Get Your Tax Documents Ready

It’s too early to file your tax return but certainly not too early to get your papers ready. Employers aren’t required to mail out W-2 forms until the end of January so you have a few weeks before you should start looking your mailbox for them. Until then, get everything else ready so that you can electronically file your tax return the moment you receive those last few documents. If you have due a tax refund, there’s no reason to wait until April 15th to file.

Opt Out of Marketing Mail

Go to OptOutPrescreen.com and have your name removed from marketing mailings. This will significantly reduce the amount of preapproved credit card offers and other financial junk mail you will receive and help protect your identity. Thieves can’t steal your mail if you reduce the amount of sensitive mail you receive. If you have an existing business relationship with a company, call them and ask to be removed from their internal marketing mailing list. For example, if you have a company’s credit card, they have the right to send you marketing mailings because you already have one of their cards. Opt out today and you won’t have to do it again for five years (or forever if you prefer).

Plan Your Retirement Contributions

All too often we wait until the end of the year to start thinking about tax reduction. One of the best ways to reduce your taxes and set yourself for a more comfortable financial future is by saving for retirement. Unfortunately, planning for retirement is very difficult to do last minute. Where are you going to come up with a few thousand dollars to put into an IRA? That’s why it’s important to plan at the beginning of the year so you can spread your contributions out over twelve months. You can contribute $1,000 towards retirement by putting a mere $84 a month.

Work Less, Enjoy More

Finally, learn to work a little less and enjoy what you have. Did it feel like the entire year flew by too quickly? When you look back, are your memories filled with fun times with friends and family or filled with days stuck at the office or on the job? If you’re one of the lucky few who have a balanced mixture of both, good for you. If you don’t, learn to add a little balance. You’re working hard for a reason, to support yourself and your family, learn to enjoy the fruits of your labor before it’s too late.

To help you through the holiday rush and keep your spirits bright, here are seven tips to make the most of your money, and save taxes to boot – now there’s a real gift!

1. Make a gift-giving budget and stick to it. Here is a fact to help you keep things in perspective. The annual budget of the United Nations is $4.89 billion, less than one third of last year’s Toys’R’Us revenue. Isn’t it time to get sane about holiday spending?

2. Decorate on the cheap. Instead of splurging on holiday knickknacks, use your ingenuity. Bundle pine boughs to capture the scent of the holidays, or buy wide velvet ribbon and tie bows on everything from doorknobs and banisters to candlesticks.

3. Give from the heart and hearth. Happy memories come these special times, not from spending a lot of money at holiday time.  Bake bread, knit a scarf or make a personalized scrapbook. A handmade gift or baked goods tells the recipient you invested time (not to mention love) in the gift – and that makes it priceless!

4. Gift wisely. You are spending your hard-earned cash, so be sure that the recipient is getting something they value. It doesn’t always work that way, you know — 42% of consumers still have at least one unopened holiday gift from last year in the back of their closet, and 28% admitted to re-gifting at least one of their holiday gifts from last year. And speaking of closets…

5.  Clean out your closets, and donate to charity the old clothes, sporting goods, books, and other household goods that you no longer use. You will welcome the New Year with new space in your life, and get a quick tax deduction to boot. Document these donations by making a list of the items at the time you donate them, so you can use It’s Deductible to compute the value of your donation.

6. Prepare for next year right after the holiday. Buy all of your decorations, gift wrap, and cards for next year at this year’s post-holiday sales. And after paying off this year’s bills, put aside $50 to $100 a month for next year’s holiday presents. You’ll emerge from next year’s holiday rush debt-free. And while you are preparing for next year…

7. Do a rough calculation of your taxes for this year now. Use TurboTax software to estimate this year’s taxes, or note your new numbers in the margin of last year’s tax return and use last year’s tax rates as a rough approximation. The IRS treats income taxes withheld from your paycheck as if they were paid in equal amounts throughout the year. So if your calculations show you’ll owe money, you can increase the withholding on your last paychecks of the year to make up the difference.

Above all, remember to enjoy the holidays. Don’t stress yourself, spend yourself into debt or spread yourself too thin trying to create the perfect celebration. Memories make themselves when you cherish time with friends and family.

Like most students away from parents for the first time, your priorities are finding your classes and navigating your courses, and balancing this reality with adapting to the social scene without adult supervision (what, no curfew?). Good times are ahead. You’ll also start to notice a variety of attitudes about money among your new friends. Some aren’t concerned with finances because they don’t need to be thanks to an allowance from their parents. More aren’t concerned, although they should be, because they don’t have full financial support. A number are quite concerned about money because they plan to work in order to afford to attend.

No matter where on this spectrum you fall, college is the perfect opportunity to establish good financial habits.

Start by establishing the right bank accounts. Find a bank with branches close to campus and close to home. Establish a checking account here for convenience. If you are working while in school, use direct deposit to automatically transfer your income to the bank so you’re not tempted to spend it all on dorm room parties. With a checking account, you’ll be able to start a high-yield savings account.

If you have a job, whether only on breaks and vacations from school or throughout the school year, think about your taxes. Download the 1040 form and instructions from the IRS website. Read through the information to get an idea of what you’ll need to provide. When your W-2 form arrives from your employer, you’ll be ready to complete the form and, in most cases, receive a refund.

Consider using a portion of this income to save for retirement. As you’re about to begin a career, it’s unlikely that ending a lifetime of labor is on your mind. This is the perfect time to establish a Roth IRA, though. You will benefit from decades of tax-advantaged investing.

As a student, you can benefit from a tax credits to reduce the amount of money you owe the government. The American Opportunity Tax Credit or Hope Credit is an incentive designed to cover a portion of your tuition and fees paid in 2009 and 2010.

Watch out for credit card offers. You’ve seen them around campus. Banks set up display tables and booths, offering free gifts like Frisbees and t-shirts to anyone who completes an application. These credit cards may not be the best choices; in fact, avoid credit cards all together. If you must use a credit card, research student credit cards fully. Some offer benefits like cash back. Without a solid source of income, credit cards can wreak havoc on your future quickly.

Save money whenever possible. As a student, businesses want to have you around. You’re likely to recommend places to your friends, so some companies are willing to offer you discounts to get you in the door. Take advantage of the discounts every time. If you don’t see a student discount advertised in a store, restaurant, or other establishment, just ask. Your student ID is a powerful piece of plastic. Along with discounts, look to avoid buying anything new. Textbooks, dorm furniture, and electronics can all be found in used but operational condition.

Starting several good financial habits now, while in college, will help set you up for a successful financial life when you graduate. Many graduates are trapped in debt when they enter the workforce, so with a few strong decisions now, you’ll be significantly ahead of the game later.

1. Don’t spend what you don’t have. Simple advice, yet to ignore it is to dig your way to the opposite of your goal, financial servitude.

2. Pay yourself first. You’ve heard it before, no doubt. Start by taking your savings right off the top. 10-15% of your gross is a good start before moving on to the next tip.

3. Budget. Know it, stick to it – while independence is an end goal, budgeting is a crucial part of the process to keep you on track to this goal.

4. Don’t spend to impress. In his “Millionaire Next Door,” Dr. Thomas Stanley helps to drive this point home. Don’t spend your money on expensive brand names that will only hold you back from your true goals.

5. Credit Cards = Poker Chips. Know why in Vegas you don’t use dollar coins or bills? By having your money turned into poker chips you tend to look at them as something less than your hard earned cash. In a similar way, many believe that credit cards have the same psychological impact.

6. Use it up, wear it out, make it do. This was the text of a WWII poster but is no less true today.

7. Buy your car used. The drop in price of a one year old car is often near 25% of its original cost. Let someone else pay for that expensive year.

8. Associate with success. People become more like those with whom they spend their time. To become a better (fill in your favorite sport) player, you need to spend time with those who are better than you, not the guys who just want to watch the game on TV. Success is not a bystander sport, you need to be in the game and associate with the best.

9. Ignore the Joneses. You will always be able to find a friend or neighbor who has better than you do. One guy has a bigger house, another, a better car. A neighbor bought his wife a beautiful tennis bracelet for their anniversary. The list doesn’t just go on, it never ends. Break the cycle before it starts.

10. Buy the best house in a safe neighborhood. This is the opposite of conventional wisdom and is the follow-on to tip 9. By buying the cheapest house in the best neighborhood as they suggest you do, you set yourself up from day one to catching up and keeping up with all of them.

11. Marry a partner. Just as a business can only be successful if the partners have a common goal, you can only reach your financial independence if you and your spouse are aligned in your quest. Too often one hears of one spouse being the spender, the other the saver. This is as important a discussion to have pre-marriage as any related to how many kids you plan to have or what house of worship to attend.

12. Discipline. The U.S. Marine Corps defines this word as “The ability to do the right thing even when no one is watching or suffer the consequences of guilt which produces pain in our bodies, through pain comes discipline.” Instead of thinking of discipline as we did as children, a punishment, this comes closer to my own view, “doing the right thing.” The steps toward financial independence are not painful, not an ongoing punishment, but a series of right choices that one must make each day.

What You Measure, You Can Improve

The classic struggle with money is always to spend less than you earn. If you spend more than you earn, you run the risk of burning through your savings and taking on debt. Once you start budgeting, you’ll have a better idea of how much you’re spending and know how much “wiggle room” you have in your monthly spending. Are you $100 away from going underwater? Or $500? Or $1000? By measuring, you know for sure.

Helps In Decision Making

By knowing how much you spend on each category, you can make decisions about your spending. Having numbers gives you the information you need to decide whether you are spending too much in one category or spending too little. By writing down each purchase or each expense, you start making active decisions, rather than going along with what you did last month.

Along with the decision making is the ability to improve how you spend your money. If you’re spending too much in one category, not you know for certain and can take steps to curtail the excess spending. The more data you have, the better informed your decision making will be.

Budget In Savings

If you don’t budget, chances are your savings strategy is to “save whatever is left at the end of the month.” That’s a bad way to save towards your goals because it’s unpredictable, especially if you’re not budgeting. It’s better to establish an amount and include it in your monthly budget, that way you can be sure to hit your savings targets. Here are some tips on how to budget in savings.

If you earmark a specific dollar amount and adjust your budget accordingly, you ensure that every money you are planning on saving that amount. Maybe something happens and you can’t save what you planned, but at least now you know why. More often than not, you’ll save that earmarked amount because you planned for it… which gets to your next reason.

It Helps You Plan

I touched on this in the “budget in savings” reason but the broader reason is that having a budget helps you plan for the future. Once you save up an emergency fund, you start saving for a house or a car, maybe you pay down some debt, or maybe you save towards starting a family. You will reach these goals faster if you manage your finances closely and actively contribute to your savings. We all know we want to achieve certain milestones in our lives, now it’s a matter of putting in a system that gets us there.

Keeps You Honest

When you have to document every purchase, it keeps you honest. It plugs up the leaks in your budget where money slips out because you weren’t keeping too close tabs on it. Do you spend a dollar each day on coffee? Or five? Do you just pull cash out of your wallet or purse without any accounting for that money? It’s so easy to take $50 out of the ATM and just spend it. There’s no accountability, you can spend it on anything and you wouldn’t be the wiser come the end of the month. By keeping a budget, you account for each dollar you spend and that’s a powerful incentive to stay honest.

Avoid Debt, Help Your Credit

Here’s a bonus reason that I don’t think most people keep in mind – by budgeting, you avoid debt. By budgeting, you avoid spending more than you earn and you avoid the downward spiral of credit card debt. I always advocate avoiding credit card use if you can’t pay it off at the end of the billing cycle and if you spend less than you earn, it’s possible. This will help ensure you have a good credit and credit score (wonder what is a good credit score?) so that you can get low interest loans on the things you may want to buy in the future, such as a car or a house.

There you have it, five (plus a bonus) reasons why budgeting is an important part of your personal finances. If you don’t budget, or did at one time but stopped, take the time to set something up today. Mint.com is a free money management tool, and it auto-categorizes all of your transactions so you’ll always know where your money goes.

Financial No-Brainer #1: Spend less than you earn

Reason: If you don’t, everything else you do financially is for naught. (And if you think this is “common sense, think again. 70% of Americans are close to if not completely ignoring this advice.)

Key step: Pretty simple: income must be greater than expenses — and the bigger the gap, the better.

Financial No-Brainer #2: Grow your career

Reason: Your career is your most valuable financial asset. The good news is that what you do with it can make it even more valuable. If you make the right moves in growing your career, the difference will be millions of dollars added to your income over your working lifetime.

Key step: Work so you deserve raises by setting expectations and then over-performing against them.

Financial No-Brainer #3: Take the full employer match on a 401k

Reason: What other investment guarantees you a 50% to 100% (depending on your plan) automatic return on your money immediately after you invest? We thought so.

Key steps: Sign up early, make investments automatic, and invest appropriately for your age and financial goals.

Financial No-Brainer #4: Invest early

Reason: Investing early is the best way to maximize your investment return. Added plus: it’s totally within our control.

Key step: Start yesterday. Today is ok too.

Financial No-Brainer #5: Pay off credit card debt

Reason: Not even great investments regularly return the 18% to 25% you’ll save by paying off your credit cards. Plus, these returns are GUARANTEED!!!!

Key step: Set up a debt snowball to get rid of all your consumer debt.

How are those for financial no-brainers? Did we miss any?

Shouldn’t you be working to be financially fit as well? Or, if you resolved to do so, what are you waiting for?

Here are 13 things you can do in 20 minutes to get financially fit in 2010:

1. Open Up A High-Yield Online Savings Account. Brick and mortar banks pay almost nothing these days. With most online savings accounts you can actually see your money growing and earning interest. This added incentive helps keep you going on your path to savings.

2. Re-Allocate Your Retirement Accounts. Check up on your IRAs and 401(k)s and any other accounts you may have to make sure you are sticking to an allocation plan. Many companies will let you set up an email alert when your accounts exceed a specified percentage and remind you to re-allocate your retirement plan. This helps you you retire well.

3. Up Your 401(k) Contributions to the Company Match. The company match is free money for your retirement. Really. Think your salary isn’t enough? Add the company match to it, it’ll look better. And your contributions are pre-tax which means if you are taxed at say, 25%, a $100 contribution really only costs you $75 in your paycheck.

4. Set Up an Automatic Savings Plan. Create a savings goal. Now divide that number by 12 months. Set up your online high-yield savings account (see item #1) to withdraw that amount every month. Voila! Automatic savings. Too often we say we are going to save but by the end of the month the money is spent. Make it automatic to make sure your savings happen. Don’t even give yourself a chance to get your hands on that pre-set amount, send it straight to savings.

5. Call Your Credit Card Company to Lower Your Interest Rate. How is your account? Have you been paying on time? Are you carrying a balance? If so, give your credit card company a call and ask to have your interest rate lowered. Most times they will oblige, especially if you tell them you have an offer for a better rate with another card. This could easily save you hundreds, if not thousands, on your credit card balance as well as help you pay it off sooner.

6. Contribute to An IRA. Try to contribute the maximum that you can. If done before April 15th you can still contribute for 2009. A Traditional IRA means you get tax breaks now. A Roth IRA gives you tax breaks when you retire. TAX BREAKS!

7. Donate Old Books and Clothes. Man, do our closets pile up with stuff we don’t use anymore. You too? Head to the local library and donate your old books. Ask for a receipt so the books can later be written off at tax time. Take your clothes to the Salvation Army or another charity. Get a receipt there too – donations are deductible.

8. Set Up A Bill/Pay Calendar. Late bill payments not only cost you cash but they can beat up your credit score too. Use a free application like Google Calendar to set up bill due date reminders for all of your bills. This can help you stay on top of your bills and can remind you if a bill got lost in the mail. Or, free budgeting software like Mint.com can send bill reminders for you, while also helping you easily set up budget, with alerts for when you overspend on clothes, food, or wherever you want to save money.

9. Use Tax Software (like TurboTax) for Your Taxes. When I started filing taxes I used to do them myself (ok, computers weren’t used as much either but that’s another issue). It would take my quite a while making sure I had every form and reading through all of the instructions then I started using tax software. Like butter! It was so much easier and quicker than doing my taxes on my own. Plus, you can save almost $200 by choosing tax software over an accountant.

10. Adjust Your W-4. Do you get a big tax refund every year? You know that’s a tax-free loan to the government right? And you could have that money in your paychecks instead? Adjust your W-4 withholding so your tax refund is less and you get more money in your paychecks now! Know what? You can put the difference in your online savings account (Item #1) as part of an automatic savings plan (Item #4).

11. Get Your Free Credit Report. You are allowed to get one copy of your credit report for free from each reporting agency once a year (three agencies). Mark your calendar in four month intervals and check one report each time to make sure all of the information on it is accurate. Mistakes on your credit report can cost you big time on your credit score, which can affect everything from loan rates to insurance costs to getting a job.

12. Collect Your Loose Change In A Jar. Toss your daily pocket change in a jar. When it fills up cash it in (look for a free service). You may find you saved up over $100 with very little work!

13. Make a List Before Food Shopping. Ever go food shopping with an idea for what you need then come home with $300 of groceries and still forgot stuff? I have. Write a list and keep to it. It will keep you focused on buying what you need and keep you from getting the extra. It also helps to cut down trips to the grocery store when you forget something and start the whole process of getting what you don’t need all over again.

There you have it – 13 things you can do in 20 minutes to get you financially fit in 2010.

What else can you think of?