10. Pile of Laundry. Buy a large circular laundry basket and cut the bottom out. Attach suspenders to it to hold it at waist high. Get a handful of old clothes and attach them to you and your laundry basket. Attach some dryer sheets and create a fabric softener ball necklace to your costume for the perfect accessory.
9. Mummy Dearest. Get an old white sheet and shred it into thin pieces. To stain the sheet, leave it in hot water filled with tea bags over night. After it dries, wrap your entire body in it and tie ends together. Pretty simple! Just paint your face white, apply grey eye shadow and black lipstick.  Cheap and scary… what Halloween is all about.
8. Old Hag. Borrow an old housecoat from your grandmother. Buy a pair of knee highs, slippers and rollers. Pretty self explanatory and cheap!
7. Mad Scientist. All you need to buy is a white coat. Mess up your hair, tape up a pair of glasses and add test tubes to your pocket for the ultimate scientist look!
6. Roman Emperor. Again, all you need is a white sheet. Wrap it on your body like a toga. Add shiny sandals on your feet and leafy ivy around your head.
5. Sexy Liberian. All you need to do is find a short skirt, a pair of really high heals, and a low cut shirt. To top it off, pull your hair in a tight bun, add reading classes and carry some books. Everyone will be reading you that night!
4. Nerd. High waisted, tight jeans and a sweater is pretty common when describing a nerd. Pull it together with a pair of thick, taped glasses and add pens and a calculator to your sweater pocket. Cheap and nerdy.
3. White Trash. Buy a large white trash bag and tie it around you like a dress. Attach empty bag of chips, soda cans, wrappers and whatever else you find in a trash can!
2. Skeleton. Buy a black shirt and black sweatpants if you don’t have already. Buy white paint and paint bones on your black shirt and pants. Pretty simple and of course cheap! Paint your face completely white to get the full effect!
1. Ghost. The most popular and cheapest Halloween costume to date; get a white sheet,  cut two holes for eyes and throw it over your body. Cut the bottom of the sheet to get that flow-like look of a ghost. Easy, cheap and no one will ask the most hated Halloween question: “what are you?”

In this day and ages, most of you receive hundreds of television channels giving you a decent chance of actually finding something you like to watch on TV. That means more competition for each show. This year alone, 85 series have either been cancelled or are ending.

According to AssociatedContent.com there are at least thirteen different factors that are taken into consideration by the network to decide if the TVshow is a no-go. Most times if a show meets just one, if not all the factors, it unfortunately is pronounced….. dead.

Before pulling the plug on the almost pronounced dead television show, networks divide thirteen factors into eight different categories to help them make the ultimate decision: DOA (problems with pre-production, script and cast changes), Corpse ( lack in buzz, postponing the return date and no lead-in), Incision( hiatus and schedule changes), Diagnosis (no additional episodes or early renewals), Dissection ( cut back on episodes orders), Burial ( pulled from schedule early into the season) and Casket (pulled from effective schedule, leading to low ratings.)

Every new season has a handful of television shows that will crash and burn while others sail along, luckily escaping death. 

Top 3 new shows that might succeed:
1. Glee (Fox)-
2. The Good Wife ( CBS)
3. Flash Forward (ABC)

Top 5 new shows that might fail:
1. Past Life (Fox)
2. Melrose Place (CW)
3. Mercy (NBC)
4. Accidentally on Purpose (CBS)
5. Hank (ABC)

 Hosted by Donald Faison, real people share their real stories. Financial experts and advisors offer advice to help them navigate their way through the most common financial challenges. “Your Life, Your Money” delivers basic financial advice in a simple and entertaining manner. Hosted by Donald Faison (”Scrubs”, “Clueless”) and featuring hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons and R&B/pop singer D.Woods (Danity Kane).  “Chapters” include financial literacy, budgets & banks, digging out of debt, saving money, insurance and starting your own business.

The “Your Life, Your Money” website and other related resources are intended to inform, inspire and motivate you to know more, do more, and be more effective in managing your money today and in the future.

 Our fall magazine is a special edition based around the “Your Life, Your Money” show. Visit the “Your Life, Your Money” website at http://www.pbs.org/your-life-your-money  for great media clips, tools and games.

 ”Your Life, Your Money” airs on PBS:
September 9, 2009 @ 9 p.m.
September 10, 2009 @ 12 p.m., 3 p.m., 3 a.m.
September 11, 2009 @ 3 a.m.

10. Road Trip. Most college road trips end up at concerts or poolside Spring break hotels with wet t-shirt contests and scantily clad co-eds. However, in this 2000 movie one desperate student enlists three of his friends to take a road trip to stop an illicit sex tape from being delivered to his girlfriend, 1800 miles away. Teaching us this very important lesson: if you are going to cheat be careful—gas is too expensive to waste trying to save yourself from getting dumped.

9. Orange County. Local surfer kid really, really, really wants to go to Stanford. After his application hits a guidance counselor-caused snafu, his girlfriend and brother (Jack Black) pull out all the comedic stops to get him into the Ivy league school of his dreams. 

8. Legally Blonde. Don’t freak out if you see a blonde in pink demonstrating the “bend and snap.” She’s just practicing her opening statement for her business law class. This 2001 comedy isn’t just a “chick flick” —it’s all about saving blondes from a future of bad, dumb blonde jokes. Reese Witherspoon shines as Elle.

7. Back to School. Millionaire Thornton Melon (Rodney Dangerfield) puts his money where his big mouth is and heads back to campus to prove to his son that going to college can be a blast. 

6. American Pie 2.  Back together after being separated for their first year of college, the American Pie group discovers just how close they really are—a shared beach house, killer party, and super glue figure prominently. This movie is all about “sticking” together.

5. Revenge of the Nerds.  Who said nerds can’t be cool? After being bullied by a group of jackass fraternity brothers, a group of underdogs pull together to fight back — it’s time for the odd ones out to get even.

4. Dead Man on Campus. What would you do if your roommate committed suicide and your reward to this devastating news was straight A’s? TOGA PARTY!!!!!!!!!!

3. Van Wilder. Every college has one. The guy who knows who’s who on campus, where every class is and where the best fraternity parties are hosted. No, not the college directory: Van Wilder, the guy whose been an undergrad for more than six years.

2. Old School. After three men (Will Farrell, Vince Vaughn, and Luke Wilson) realize their lives are starting to seriously suck, they decide to head back to campus and start their own fraternity. If a mid-life crisis movie and a campus comedy movie had a baby this would be that baby.

1.  National Lampoon’s Animal House. This 1978 classic features John Belushi at his finest. The godfathers of “mistfit fraternity/sorority house” movies, the Delta House is still the most memorable.   Everyone knows that college wouldn’t be the same without this movie and most of the college movies on this list would never have existed without it. That’s why Animal House is our #1 College Comedy of all time.

Top Ten Grossing College Movies (1978- Present)*

National Lampoon’s Animal House    $141,600,000
Legally Blonde     $96,520,674
Back to School   $91,258,000
Old School       $75,585,093
Road Trip       $68,540,777
The House Bunny       $48,237,389
College Road Trip      $45,610,425
Orange County    $41,076,018
Revenge of the Nerds    $40, 874, 452
Accepted     $36, 323, 505

*Statistics provided by boxofficemojo.com.

Is there a college comedy that you love that we left off? Tell us about it.

10. Brewster’s Millions (1985) - Montgomery Brewster (Richard Pryor) is left 30 million dollars by a rich relative. Only this money comes with a caveat—he has to spend it all in 30 days in order to get 300 million more. Of course he can’t tell anyone and hilarity ensues.

9. American Psycho (2000) – Before he was Batman Christian Bale was coldly and methodically murdering friends, lovers and strangers as well-dressed, materialistic, investment banker Patrick Bateman. Shallow, soulless, and psychotic, Bateman has no trouble chopping up people as long as his apartment is perfect and bank balance is huge.

8. Glengarry Glen Ross ( 1992) -  Based on the Pulitzer-winning play by David Mamet this is the ultimate real estate film. A desperate group of real estate salesmen suffer in a down market, a sales contest is launched and anyone who fails loses his or her job. Regarded by some as a critique of the impact of Reaganomics.

7. Casino (1995) - Two mobster friends ( Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci) navigate their mob-infested ways in the casinos of Las Vegas in the 70s. Sharon Stone plays the table-side hustler and De Niro love interest. To each of them, making money is all that matters.

6. It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World (1963) - A thief’s dying words lead a group of motorists across country to find hidden fortune.

5. Ocean’s Eleven (2001) -  George Clooney and Brad Pitt lead an all-star cast plan to rob three of the biggest casinos in Las Vegas in one night. Is stealing still wrong if the guy you’re stealing from is an a-hole?  Remake of 1960 Rat Pack original.

4. Boiler Room (2000) -  A college dropout (Giovanni Ribisi) gets a job at a investment firm which gives him fast success; however, the job might not be as legit as it sounds. No wonder coveting is a sin.

3. The Sting (1973) -  The classic con movie set in 1930’s Chicago. Hustle and Leverage would probably have never existed with Newman and Redford pulling a big scam in the hopes of winning a fortune from a criminal banker.

2. Trading Places (1983) - A snobbish investor ( Dan Aykroyd) and a street con artist ( Eddie Murphy) are plucked from their lives and dropped in each others as part of a bet by two aging and uncaring millionaires—will the hustler be able to fit into the well-bred world of high-finance and what will a blueblood do to survive when tossed out on the street? It’s nature versus nurture, only funnier.

1. Wall Street (1987) -  Gordan Gekko (Michael Douglas), a heartless yet successful stockbroker, guides a young man willing to do anything (including insider trading) to get to the top. A perfect portrayal of the greed and corruption that colored the 80s.

As Subimal Chatterjee, marketing professor at Binghamton University said, "Indeed, we have found that some franchises are closely following this practice. For instance, New Line Studios released the Lord of the Rings trilogy in almost clocklike precision: Fellowship of the Ring in December, 2001; The Two Towers in December, 2002; and the Return of the King in December, 2003. A shorter time gap for releasing a sequel is better than a longer time gap given that the ‘buzz’ and anticipation is likely to dissipate in consumers’ memory with a longer wait."      

Turns out star power has a lot to do with it too. As Chatterjee also notes, "For example, people were quite willing to wait for over ten years to see Bruce Willis back in Die Hard or Harrison Ford in Indiana Jones." That’s not to say it’s always about banking the return of the biggest names in Hollywood. The success of a franchise inevitably depends on the quality of the sequels themselves. "If consumers perceive that the sequels are better than the original film," said Suman Basuroy, assistant professor of marketing at Florida Atlantic University, "the number of sequels can have a positive impact on the current sequel’s box office performance. Once again, we found that ‘buzz’ and consumer anticipation can be the ‘make or break’ factor in building the overall franchise."

This whole sequels business follows along with another trend in recent Hollywood productions, 3-D movies. The recent success of Monsters vs. Aliens, which set an opening weekend record with a total take of just under $60 million in the U.S. and Canada, signals that 3-D movies are here to stay. Jeffrey Katzenberg, Chief Executive Officer of Dreamworks’ Animation Department, has already announced that his studio will release all future films in 3-D. "I think this is the beginning of an era," Katzenberg said, "and I think we’re going to see a lot of very exciting films and filmmakers working using this new technique." It’s Katzenberg’s hope that over the next year and a half, the number of theaters equipped with 3-D technology will have roughly quadrupled from just over 2,000 in the U.S. to around 7 or 8,000.

Ultimately, as Hollywood continues to struggle with the combined trends of fewer movie goers and more online piraters (illegal downloads surpassed legal downloads by a five-to-one ratio according to a 2006 study by NPD group), it’ll only make more sense for motion picture studios to back sequels or alternative filmmaking techniques like 3-D. In fact, 3-D movies may someday be the only movies people are actually willing to go to the theater to see. At $60 million opening weekend, Monsters vs. Aliens hit the high-end of studio projections. Sequels on the other hand, tend to cost less, can be made faster, and don’t require nearly as much promotion as an original film. Producers for a movie like Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, can rely on Harrison Ford and Steven Spielberg, the king of the summer blockbusters since Jaws came out in ‘75, to sell the film with a minimal amount of advertising. Repetition is just the name of the game.

Boggs doesn’t sell his art. He “spends” it—trading it for services and always paying face value ($10 in services gets you a $10 Boggs note). According to www.artscenecal.com, “So far, he’s spent about $250,000 worth of Boggs’ bills. Now, does that figure refer to the face value of those bills? Or does it refer to how much they’re worth? Even the most elementary statement about Boggs’ artwork launches an inquiry into the nature of money, monetary transactions, value, art, abstraction, representation and reproduction.”

The question continues when you realize that Boggs Bills are frequently “worth” many times their face value. Wikipedia states that, “Art collectors will pay $1000 for a $10 note.”

Boggs believes his transactions are performance art and he never just gave his Boggs Bills to collectors. Instead, he enjoys giving people the choice of accepting art over money; to question what makes money valuable in the first place. So the less they know about him, the better. He does sell the receipts of his transactions to art collectors so they can find the lucky Boggs’ recipients and offer them much more money for the Boggs Bill. It’s not until this happens that the “art” is complete.

Boggs now designs currency on the computer. This currency still is worth more than its face “value,” although not nearly as much as his older hand-drawn work.

In 1986 Boggs was arrested in England for counterfeiting. In 1989 he was arrested in Australia. He was acquitted in both cases on the grounds that he was creating art and not trying to pass his currency off as real. Since 1990 he has had work and personal effects confiscated by the U.S. Secret Service Counterfeiting Division. No legal case has been brought against him in the U.S.

Boggs work is in the collections of the British Museum, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Smithsonian Institution.

Tell me about yourself (background, experience). How did you become a financial expert?
I studied literature in school but got a job researching personal finance pretty soon after I graduated. That job was a crash course in everything from shopping tips to how to save for retirement. Over the years, I’ve talked to thousands of some of the world’s leading financial experts to get their take on what the everyday person should do with his or her money. One day, I noticed nobody was really focused on getting this information to young people, so I wrote Get a Financial Life.

Tell me about your book. Why is it so important for young people to read this book?
Even when the economy was doing well, young Americans were having a hard time getting ahead. They’re earning less than young people were in the 1970s, spending about 20% of their gross income to manage their debt, and their net worth has plunged 24% since 2004. And one in four has no health insurance. You have no power over whether the economy’s in a recession or not, but you can control how you spend (or save) your money.

What is the most important thing that young people need to know about money?
Interest can be your worst enemy or your best friend. That’s why it’s so lethal to pay off high-interest-rate debt on the slow schedule that credit card companies set up for you: you’ll owe money for years if not decades. But if you’re the one earning the interest, the power of compounding—which is when you get interest on your interest—will make your savings grow exponentially. And the younger you start, the more time you have for that to work in your favor.

Why is setting a budget so important?
If you spend more than you’re making, you’re literally living on borrowed cash and probably on borrowed time as well. First and foremost, breaking down your expenses by category gives you a way to see where you need to cut back. And by setting limits on what you can spend on various things, you’ll be able to track your progress and identify areas you still need to work on.

Can you share an example of how young people can start working on a budget?
Sites like mint.com and wesabe.com make it incredibly easy by giving you a top-down view of your checking and credit card accounts: every debit card purchase, every charge, every ATM withdrawal, every check, categorized according to how it fits into your life. From there, it’s up to you to look at each category and identify trends. Are you spending a lot more than you thought on food? How much could you save if you avoided the snack bar for a month?

What is the most important thing for a young person to do during a recession?
Small changes in your habits can make a big difference over time—even in this bleak economic environment. Keep an eye on where your money goes and make it a budget priority to build a cushion of savings for emergencies. Don’t spend more than you can afford. Pay your bills on time.

What is a safe way for young people to save money?
The bank is still the safest place out there. People may say you’re an idiot for only getting 1% to 2% in a savings account or CD, but the past year has shown us how vicious the stock market can get. The federal government guarantees that if you have less than $250,000 in the bank, that money will be protected in case the bank fails. (Check FDIC.gov for more details.)

You have a chapter in your new book about insurance? Can you give us an example of a type of insurance young people might not need and why?
Life insurance. You may have a relative who tells you to get a life insurance policy now because it will only get more expensive when you’re older, but if you don’t have kids or a spouse depending on your income, you don’t need it. Put that money in your retirement account instead.

In your book you mention that it is smarter to pay off your debt than save money. Do you have any rules of thumb about this? For example, what is the minimum amount of credit card debt that someone (without a lot of money) should try to pay off each month?
It really can be smarter to use any savings you have to pay off debt that charges you a high interest rate. In general, if your savings are earning less interest than what you’re paying on your debt, go ahead and cash out your savings and apply that money to what you owe. For example, if you have $400 in the bank earning 2% and you have a $400 balance on a credit card charging you 16%, your savings will only make you $8 richer this year while your card makes you $64 poorer—you come out with a $56 loss. But if you zero out that debt by using your savings, you break even.

If you don’t have any savings, there are still smart ways to attack your debt. Use any extra money in your budget to pay off your highest-rate debt first. (Usually, this will be a credit card and not your student loans.) Even if you’re only paying $5 a month more than what your lender is asking for, it makes a huge difference—about $300 in interest and five years of repayments over the life of a $1,000 balance on a typical card, for example. (Added tip: The minimum payments the card company asks for will go down over time, so lock in your current payment, add $5 and save even more.) Meanwhile, call the company and see if you can get a lower interest rate.

Do you have any basic financial guidelines you can share?
I’ve hit you with a lot of the big ones: live within your means, pay off debt as fast as you can, keep your savings in safe places. One last one:

Guard your credit score. It’s basically the GPA of your financial history and it follows you around for life. The biggest thing you can do to hurt your credit is to pay your bills late, so make sure you make all your payment deadlines. Even if you don’t want to sign up to have your bills paid automatically online every month, get your bank or utility company to send you email or text reminders.

Is there anything else that you would like to share with my readers?
You’re the generation that elected Obama. You can make anything happen if you set your minds to it. Whenever I talk to students, I’m blown away by the energy and the optimism that you and your peers have. Use it to your advantage!

Buy Beth Kobliner’s new book! The New York Times bestseller: Get a Financial Life 

Visit www.kobliner.com

Did you know that movie attendence is up 20% over last year?  This might be a great time to look into investing in some entertainment stocks. WeSeed.com provides this entertaining and informative look at choosing entertainment stocks, including Time Warner, General Electrics, Regal Entertainment and Cinemark.

Visit www.weseed.com

So this was pretty big news for college students who spend more hours a week playing video games than studying for classes. Finally, a way to make money that doesn’t involve a college (or high school) degree. Unfortunately, professional video gamers who actually make money off playing video game tournaments practice anywhere from 8 to 10 hours a day, so it’s not really something just any old college student with a GameCube or and Xbox can afford to do. However, some avid college video gamers have turned their love for first-person shooters and RPGs, as well as their IT programming knowledge, into a whole lot of money—by designing their own online video games and user-created video game hosting sites.

Four of the top Internet games sites: Runescape, PopCap Games, Newgrounds, and Miniclips—with 43 million users per month—is also the largest privately held Internet website. All four sites were founded in the late ‘90s or early ‘00s by college students or recent college graduates. Miniclips, founded by Robert Small and Tihan Presbie back in 2001, turns about $35-40 million in profit annually, most of it through advertising, paid subscriptions for certain games, and sponsorships from film studios, which pay Miniclips to make games like Spiderman and Pirates of the Caribbean, timed with the release of the films themselves. Small, now 32, had only recently graduated from college when he and Presbie founded Miniclips. With about $70,000 as an investment startup, some of it borrowed from Small’s grandfather, the two set up the site and designed a popular game called Dancing Bush, in which users could make an animated President Bush dance around. That game got them 2 million users by the end of their first month, and everything went from there.

Runescape, a free Java-based Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (MMORPG), also officially debuted to the public in 2001. Andrew Gower designed the game when he was an undergraduate at the University of Cambridge, working on various beta versions from 1998 up until its official release. Runescape has 14 million registered users with more than 150 game servers worldwide. Gower has since partnered up with other games sites, including WildTangent, and developed his own official games site, Jagex. According to the UK Business Times, he’s worth around $210 million.

So what advice can gaming entrepreneurs like Small or Gower offer you? For starters, know your audience and draw them in early. When Gower founded Runescape he set a goal of 5,000 users by the end of the month, which he met through constant tweaks and updates taken from actual player suggestions. A video game site can’t afford to ignore its users’ feedback, particular in the early weeks and months. As Gower told GamePro magazine, “We are constantly updating, adding to and improving the game. If you look at the game now and compare it to five years ago is has come a very long way and it is continually progressing and getting better. I think this commitment is important because it gives something for the players to look forward to, RuneScape is never standing still.

"Secondly it means the game is continually expanding and hopefully staying ahead of the demands of our gamers.”

Small says much the same thing. “Make your product great,” he told the UK Business Times in an interview earlier this year, “and it will get talked about. Don’t get distracted by PR and marketing until you’ve got that right.”

And like Gower, Small knows about the advantages and disadvantages of the Internet: it makes for cheap and easy start-up, but a lot of competition. “It helped to be small,” Small said. “We could make decisions instantly and get things done quickly. When you are small, you should capitalize on the opportunity this gives you to move quickly. First-mover advantage can be very powerful.”