How to Keep Your Personal Belongings Safe on Campus

How to Keep Your Personal Belongings Safe on Campus Audra Lowe: Now, let's talk more about our money. You know college kids are going to school with more expensive belongings like the laptops, the LCDs, the iPads and other pricey techno gadgets. So, how can you make sure that those items that they do have are protected when they’re on campus. Well, in today’s Your Money, Better’s financing career expert, Maribel Aber share us some tips on how you can do just about other than going crazy trying to keep track of all that. Good to have you back! Maribel Aber: Yes, good to be here. Audra Lowe: When we were in school, I remember we have the computers obviously, but if you had your own computer, it was a big deal. Maribel Aber: Huge deal. Audra Lowe: Yeah, it was a big deal and that you would have to go to the computer rooms to use there but if you had your own, you have to protect it and make sure that no one stole it. So, now these kids have a whole another set of issues, right. Maribel Aber: They have all new issues on their with you. I mean I had a typewriter, okay. Audra Lowe: Oh, I see. Maribel Aber: I thought it was really cool the two LED panel but hey, today, the iPhone, the Smart phone, all these things are brainer school. It’s true and I was just reading this article form Market Watch and it was talking about how burglaries in campuses in 2008 they cited 32,000. Audra Lowe: Oh, my God! Maribel Aber: It is -- you think about all these valuable stuff, the temptation’s there so how do you protect yourself? Audra Lowe: I would think that the most obvious thing is just lock everything up. That’s what you would think. When you're on college campuses, you're not thinking like that. Maribel Aber: You're not. You're having a great time. This is your new home. Okay, so it’s not really it is but it’s not so one thing to do is if you live off-campus, think about a lock box, think about any kind of lock book item like a safe. You can get it from Staples or Home Depot or Office Depot, any office good store. Important thing is you have to bolt it down though. You don’t want somebody walk away with the whole thing. Audra Lowe: And, a lot of kids need a reminder, too because again you can get very comfortable and you sit something for one second and it’s gone. Maribel Aber: One second and it’s gone and the other thing that what students should do is engrave their belongings or personalize them because if you have just a general Mac Pro silver beautiful laptop compared to the pink Hello Kitty, whatever is that identifies you, they’re less likely to get that. Think about in companies, they have asset tags. Audra Lowe: Oh yeah. Maribel Aber: Engrave your stuff. Audra Lowe: You're mentioning a woman who sat down her iPhone for one second in Starbucks and someone took off with it. Maribel Aber: Juts took off with it so it’s a big reminder. Just remember you're not at home. Audra Lowe: We’ll have a talk, cup café latte whatever it is. Maribel Aber: Chasing you down the street if that was me. Audra Lowe: Okay, you also have to be very careful with what you post on Facebook, Twitter telling people that you're going on vacation and you're not at home. Maribel Aber: It’s a great way to connect with people but you just have to remember you have to be careful what you out on there especially if you're not aware of your privacy settings. Some people don’t realize their system called the GeoTags with photos and I saw this one story actually. He was a television personality. He posted on Twitter a pick of his car. It has his license plate. It was in front of his home and basically saying, “Okay, I'm going to work. Well, that said, okay, this is my home. I'm not home and here’s my car and here’s the longitude and the latitude of how you can get there.” Audra Lowe: Stop by anytime and pick it up. Maribel Aber: Exactly. Audra Lowe: You had to tell me about that, too because when you're taking pictures that just tells exactly right where you are. Maribel Aber: So, you need to be very careful. Audra Lowe: All right. Thank you so much Maribel. We definitely appreciate it and if you guys have questions for Maribel, you can e-mail her at askmaribel@bettertv.com and she will answer them.