Debt-Free by 30

Debt, and mounds of it. For many, it's the unadvertised byproduct of a college degree. Combine education loans with daily credit card offers going even to the unemployed and a keep-up culture of dot-com riches and you've got a whole stratum of graduates deep in the red. "We were financial basketcases," says Jason Anthony, who co-wrote the book with Karl Cluck. "Most people in their 20s just have no clue about money. We didn't. For me it was getting one raise after another and sinking deeper into debt." Not five years after graduation, the two friends had accumulated combined credit card debt of $27,000. Anthony had to turn down an enticing job opportunity because he wouldn't be able to make minimum payments on his credit cards after a 15 percent pay cut, and Cluck had indefinitely postponed graduate school for much the same reason. After they confessed this to each other over brunch one Sunday, they decided to get together and defeat Visa, MasterCard and AmEx once and for all. A financial plan in one's 20s is more about balancing earning and spending and not yet about mortgage rates, estate planning or alternative investing. The two examined their own financial records and dug up wasteful spending, like the $19 in fees on Anthony's monthly bank statement or the $1,000 per year Cluck was blowing on taxis. They interviewed many friends -- some of them fellow Columbia (NY) grads -- to illustrate other young people's financial habits, mistakes and turnarounds. One discovery that interested them was the non-correlation between how much money people make and how in control of their money they are. "We found a publicist making $36,000 with perfect finances, but a 25-year-old investment banker making $100,000 who can't pay her credit card bills," Cluck says. - Columbia College Today.