Ah Monday. The return to a wonderful job after a long weekend. The joy of sharing the highway with thousands of other happy individuals. The return of the mail carrier after a heart-breaking two-day absence.

Normally Monday means a slightly heavier load of mail since it hasn’t been delivered since Saturday, but yesterday I was greeted with an obscene number of envelopes bearing those familiar logos of the likes of Capital One, Bank of America, Citibank, and various other financial institutions who want my money, my blood, and what little space remains in my recycling bin.

But yesterday was different from the usual deluge of 0% balance transfer offers and $50 for opening a checking account advertisements. There were no ads or offers in yesterday’s mail. What was there? Confirmations. Confirmations of my online internet activity. Credit line increases. Balance transfer executions. E-mail address changes. I counted 12 separate confirmation letters in all. All on paper, all in separate mailings.

I’d received similar paper mailings before, but never more than one on any given day. I have been fooling around with my various credit card and savings accounts lately, requesting larger credit lines and taking advantage of account opening bonuses and interest-free credit card loans. I guess all of that fancy online accounting converged into a single day of mailing.

But this huge batch of confirmation letters irked me in a way that no single confirmation letter has ever irked me before. I counted three separate causes for my irkyness:

• Paper letters for online activity. Thanks to the power of the internet, I can do pretty much anything imaginable with my credit and bank accounts from the comfort of my couch. All it takes is a few mouse clicks, a couple of keystrokes, a swig of gin, and all my finances are in order. So then why must I get all these paper confirmation letters when I do something online??? I know you sometimes need 5-7 days to qualify me for that massive credit line increase, but have you ever heard of e-mail?
• Every letter had my full account number. “Your credit line increase for account number XXXX YYYY ZZZZ WWWW has been approved.” You won’t even show my full credit card account number on your website when I’m logged in from my laptop—something nobody’s going to get their hands on in the next 10 minutes without breaking down the front door and brandishing a shotgun. But you’ll gladly plaster it all over your paper confirmation letters. Mailboxes are so easy to rob that I just robbed my neighbor’s right now while typing this sentence. Maybe if credit card issuers wouldn’t send out umpteen mailings with full customer account numbers for anyone to see and steal, there wouldn’t be so much rampant theft and fraud and pain. Just a thought. (Morons.)
• Two separate letters for one request. Twice. This was the straw that broke my electronic camel’s back. For one credit line increase request, I got two letters: one saying “You’ve been approved for an increase to $10,000,” another saying I’ve been rejected for an increase to $20,000. I had requested the increase to $20,000; but much like a first-grader who can’t combine two thoughts into a compound sentence, Bank of Name Omitted to Protect the Stupid Bank couldn’t combine the good news and the bad news into a single letter. Similarly, another bank decided that it took two letters to confirm my e-mail address change—only the content of both letters was identical. Yay, double the chances for a mailbox thief to steal my account number!

Banks and credit card issuers be warned: If you send me another paper confirmation and I happen to paper cut myself on it, I’m going to sue you soooo much for assault with a deadly weapon. And if you don’t believe me, just check your mailbox for a confirmation letter written in myyyy blooooood.

You know, from the paper cut.

There’s a fascinating yet frightening discussion over at the FatWallet Finance Forums about restaurant servers stealing their way to higher tips on credit card receipts. Servers upset by low tips that they probably deserved have been known to edit the tip line of credit card receipts to bump up their tip. For example:

See how easily a measly tip is changed to a generous one by a disgruntled server or bartender?

The easiest way to combat this illegal and downright nasty behavior is to reconcile your receipts against your credit card statements each and every month. You’ll spot restaurant wrongdoing and be able to phone it in to your credit card issuer faster than you can say “there’s a fly in my soup.”

But for the trillions of people who don’t want to go through the trouble of reconciling their receipts each month, there’s an easier way to stop tip alterations just by glancing over your credit card statement each month. It involves using checksums to add a layer of security to your tip amount. The term “checksum” normally refers to a technique used by computer systems to ensure file integrity. Here, we’ll be using checksums to ensure human integrity.

There are many checksum systems you can use when tipping, but here’s a great example that’s easy to learn and can be performed without the aid of a calculator unless you suck at math really badly.

Step 1: Look over your receipt

You’ll get ripped off far more often for food and drink overcharges than you will by spiteful servers. Check each billed item and compare it to the menu price.

Step 2: Calculate the appropriate tip

Tip as you normally do without worrying about checksums for now. For our example, let’s say you had the following bill but service was slow, so you’d like to tip about 10%.

Step 3: Apply a checksum

That $4.71 is just begging to have ten dollars added to it, and $51.87 becomes $61.87 so easily. Foil these alteration efforts with this simple checksum method.

Adjust the amount of the tip so that the numbers in the final total to the left of the decimal point add up to the right-most digit. In this case, the total has a “51″ to the left of the decimal point (A). 5 + 1 = 6, so the final digit should be six. Adjust the total to $51.86 or $51.96 (B) by adding nine or subtracting one from the tip (C).

Step 4: Check your credit card statements each month

While the receipt will help you ensure no fraud was enacted upon your dining bill, you only need the statement to verify the checksum. For this example, simply locate the dining transaction, add the numbers to the left of the decimal point, and confirm that they add up to the right-most digit. If they don’t, you’ve been scammed.

This technique is not foolproof. If the scammy server had added nine dollars to the total—making it $60.86—the checksum calculation would still come back okay. But because it’s harder to turn a “51″ into a “60″ than a “61,” it’s unlikely your server will do this unless they’re wise to this particular checksum technique.

Step 5: Deal with the theft

If you hit a checksum that fails, dig out your copy of the receipt to confirm it doesn’t match the total on your statement. Next, do three things:

1. Call your credit card issuer. It should be fairly simple to get a credit for the difference between your actual bill and what you were forced to pay due to this fraud.
2. Call the police. You were the victim of a crime, so you should report it, even if it’s just a few dollars. If the stealing server has multiple victims who report his or her behavior, the police will likely take action against the server and/or the restaurant. Hopefully a few thieving restaurant workers behind bars will set enough of an example to discourage similar actions in others.
3. Call the restaurant (optional). At this point, you’ve likely got your money back and given all the information you can to law enforcement. You can try calling the restaurant to report the theft, but it might not do much. In the best case, the manager will recognize the server’s name on your receipt and confirm he or she has been suspected of wrongdoing. Maybe you’ll even get a free meal out of it for your trouble. Worst case, the restaurant does nothing.

The original poster in the FatWallet Finance Forum topic may be onto something when he or she says that this is probably one of the most widespread types of theft that goes unpunished. Now you have the tools to fight it. The next time you’re at a restaurant, eat, drink, be merry, and do a little extra math come tip time to help combat this rapidly growing problem.

UPDATE: Jeff B. put together a nifty Windows Mobile app for tip checksum calculations that’ll help make it easier to compute the proper tip given your level of service and checksumming method. Thanks Jeff!

Sure, Citi might have the best reward cards, and Discover has some great balance transfer offers, but the best credit cards never see the light of day. Here are just a few cards that you won’t soon be swiping at the grocery store but you’ll wish you could.

Voosa Awesome Card
This card is designed for all of the awesome people out there, mainly circus acrobats and readers of Punny Money. The Awesome Card features an amazing reward program unlike any card you’ve ever seen. For each dollar you spend using the Voosa Awesome Card, Voosa will donate three cents to the American Society for the Awesomely Challenged. Please do all you can to help those out there who just can’t be as awesome as us by signing up for the Voosa Awesome Card today.

MasterBate Rewards
The MasterBate Rewards card makes using credit cards feel good. Not only do you earn a 1% cash rebate on all purchases made with the MasterBate Rewards card, but you’ll also earn 5% cash back on purchases made at sex toy shops, strip clubs, and hookers equipped with credit card sliders in their boobies. So keep your cash at home and put the MasterBate Rewards card in your pants pocket… if there’s any room left in there.

Card of Darkness
This is the perfect credit card for goths, heavy metal fans, and people suffering from depression. The Card of Darkness comes with a zero-dollar credit line which will reinforce your lifestyle of sadness and despair because it’ll be rejected every time you use it. And if you’re tempted to overspend using the Card of Darkness, you won’t need to take a pair of scissors to this card; it comes with the patented Emo-Sense™ Technology that lets this card cut itself!

Iranian Express Gold Card
If the Israeli Express card isn’t your cup of tea, then you’ll absolutely love this Gold Card from Iranian Express. Redeem reward points on this card for a variety of merchandise including restaurant gift cards, airline tickets, and nuclear weapons. If you want this card, you better hurry; Iranian Express appears to be the target of a hostile takeover by American Express, and you know how things turned out for Iraqi Express.

It is widely known that people tend to spend more with credit cards than if they use cash. Supposedly this is because you can “feel” cash leaving you.

From a scientific perspective, the paper bills passing through your hands release tiny particles found in the ink used to print money. Those particles travel through your bloodstream, sending a signal through your nerves straight to your brain which responds by releasing chemicals that make you feel remorseful (see diagram, top). The plastic of credit cards does not cause the same biochemical reaction, so you don’t get that feeling of regret (see diagram, bottom).

Okay, I just made up all that crap. But it’s still generally true that most people spend anywhere from 10-30% more when using credit than when paying with cash.

But I’m not most people.

As I’ve discovered in the last week, I tend to spend more when using cash than when using credit cards. And I think I know why:

• Cash tends to come from “nowhere.” I rarely have cash in my possession. If I ever do, it’s not on purpose. Usually it’s a gift or it comes from selling something I don’t need. I view it as extra money, so I’m more inclined to spend it on frivolous things.
• Cash doesn’t make it to my books. Because of the way cash typically enters my possession, I almost never log it in my personal finance tracking application of choice. And I don’t log receipts for transactions I pay in cash either. Thus there’s no line item in my monthly spending report to make me feel guilty for spending $60 in cash on two hot dogs at a baseball game.
• I don’t like cash. Cash takes up precious room in my wallet, and it invariably spawns something I hate even more: loose change. The sound of coins clinking in my pocket–ugh, it sends shivers through me. Perhaps I spend cash quicker because my subconscious is working to get rid of it faster. Of course, I could just deposit it in the bank, but going to the bank is another thing I don’t like doing.

So do you fall into the typical behavioral pattern of spending more with credit cards, or do you part with cash easier like I do?

By Michele Stillwell

After reading Punny Money for a couple of years, you college students out there might know that you can save lots of money avoiding the school bookstore and flashing your student ID at area businesses for a discount. But for today’s college student on a shoestring budget, sometimes you have to go beyond conventional wisdom to make it through your four (or five, or ten) years of college financially intact.

Credit Cards

Conventional Wisdom: Get the Citi mtvU Visa and receive 5 ThankYou Points for each dollar spent at the college bookstore (including textbooks, clothing, and other necessities), and at restaurants and movie theaters. Send in your transcripts each semester and get up to 2,000 points for good grades.

Beyond CW: When you’ve accumulated some points, rather than getting a gift card that you’ll spend on things you don’t need or trading it in for cash at a less that 1 point for $1 exchange, use it for student loan rebates and get the full value of your points in a check to your student loan bank–it’s easy to do and the check comes quickly.

Textbooks

Conventional Wisdom: Look online (Amazon and AbeBooks, among many others) for used books at a fraction of the price. See if there are any student co-ops or book swaps for getting cheap textbooks. At the end of the semester (or better yet at the beginning of the next semester), sell your books online and avoid the bookstore buyback at all costs.

Beyond CW: Many college bookstores hire temporary cashiers for two weeks at the beginning of the semester during the textbook buying rush. Contact your bookstore to see if they’re hiring. Not only will you get paid an hourly rate, but you’ll get an employee discount (as much as 15%) on your books for the semester.

Many professors get free textbooks sent to them by publishers hoping they’ll choose to use it for their class (thus putting more money in the pockets of the publishers). Often the professors don’t need or want them and they’re relegated to recycling or a box in storage. Ask your professors for their unwanted books or check recycling and you might come across some brand new, most recent edition books that will sell very well online.

If you see your book online for extremely cheap and then realize it’s an earlier edition than the one on the booklist, don’t immediately dismiss it. Textbook publishers often come out with new editions after only making minimal updates or adding one chapter. If you have a classmate with the newer book to fall back on, you can usually save a huge amount by getting an older edition. But make sure to do your research on the changes because occasionally there is a major update and you’ll be lost with an outdated book.

As soon as you have your booklist, check out the books from the school library (do it quickly before someone else beats you to them). After you attend class and get a syllabus, you’ll have a better idea of which books you really need and which ones the professor put on the booklist only because he wrote it and gets a cut for each book sold. Plus, if you decide to buy it online, having a copy from the library will ensure you don’t get stuck without the book when you have an assignment. Your library doesn’t have the book? Check out the inter-library loan or consortium program–they’re often really easy to use and give you access to a huge database of books.

Using the College Discount

Conventional Wisdom: Use your college ID to get discounts at the movie theater, on transit passes, and in other places. Get a Student Advantage card to save money with companies like Amtrak, Greyhound, Target, and more.

Beyond CW: If you live in a city that has a car sharing company like Zipcar or Flexcar, most universities have organizational memberships which give affiliated members–including students–discounts. If you use a car share instead of the costs of parking, maintaining and fueling your own car, your savings will soar.

Many universities, usually the department in charge of student activities, have Costo/Sam’s Club memberships and make the cards available to student organizations. Use the card to access one of the warehouse clubs and save money on buying soda, veggies, and more in bulk.

Many first-run live theaters offer half-price tickets (or even less–I’ve gotten $10 ticket to Broadway-esque plays in the past) to students if you go to the box office on the day of the presentation and ask.

Unite With Your Fellow Students

Beyond CW: Many universities have not-for-profit, student-owned-and-operated coffee shops, book co-ops, convenience stores that offer books, clothes, food, and more at prices cheaper that surrounding businesses. If your university doesn’t have one, consider starting one up and gaining amazing business experience while saving your fellow students money.

Share expenses with floor/dorm/apartment mates. For example, rather than buying separate cable for your room (and wasting time in front of the TV when you should be out experiencing college life), see if you can get people on your floor to contribute a few bucks for cable in the common room and make TV watching a social event.

Be creative and have fun with your friends for free rather than paying for theater tickets or cover charges. Have a unique costume party or pot-luck–the crazier the theme, the better.

Other Tips for Saving or Making Money

Conventional Wisdom: Before buying anything new, check Craigslist, Freecycle, local thrift stores and moving sales to see if you find it cheap or free.

If you’re eligible for work study, find a low stress job at an academic department or office and use down time to study.

Beyond CW: Instead of visiting Blockbuster, check your college library’s DVD collection–there might be something you want to see. Often libraries have some great independent and arty films, and occasionally more popular hits.

Check out bulletin boards for notices of science or psychology studies that will pay you to answer questions, drink green juice, or something similarly harmless.

After You Graduate

Conventional Wisdom: Consider consolidating your student loan. Try to avoid lifestyle inflation. Oh, and find a job.

Beyond CW: See if your university has an alumni association that you can join. Many offer numerous discounts, cheap membership to the university gym, and use of other university facilities that can come in handy even if you move to another city. Careful though, you’re also likely to get calls and letters asking you to donate all the money you’ve saved and more to your alma mater.

If you’re a member of United’s Mileage Plus program, take advantage of their 10,000 mile graduation reward and you’ll be almost halfway to a free air ticket.

Above all, make sure you utilize all the amazing facilities available to you. Never again will you have so many resources–the library, the gym, the career center, the mental health center, and activities, events, speakers and student organizations–available for free (well, free after you or your parents paid thousands of dollars for the access).

(3 votes, average: 2.33 out of 5)

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Michele Stillwell is a communications associate for a nonprofit in California. She’d love to hear from you by email.