Laura Rowley Money & Happiness

As a new college graduate, you're no doubt being showered with financial advice: Join your company's 401(k) plan immediately! Get cracking on paying off those student loans! Dress for success -- but don't run up your credit cards! Start networking so you can move up the ladder! Don't get drunk at the company picnic! (The latter actually is financial advice, since getting wasted could be detrimental to your continued employment.)

So let me add my two cents: Try to live within your means, and save money.

"If I Can Make It There..."

That's not easy when you're just out of college, even for a die-hard cheapskate like me. I was fortunate to graduate with a few hundred bucks in the bank because I started working and saving at 14, had an academic scholarship and a couple of part-time jobs on campus. (I also walked uphill in the snow both ways to school every day...but that's another story.) In any case, the money was spent about 30 seconds after I relocated to New York City. I relied on Citibank's "bounce-proof checking" -- a high-interest credit line ­- to finance my life for the next year.

Although I couldn't make ends meet, it never crossed my mind to go home. I had moved from the Midwest singing "If I can make it there..." at the top of my lungs. If I couldn't make it there, I'd have to slink home with my tail between my legs. I have 10 brothers and sisters. The potential humiliation factor inspired me to get a part-time gig at a boutique on top of my regular job.

I moaned and groaned about money in my journal from this period, at one point vowing to sleep more and party less so I could cut eye drops out of the budget. (You'd think I would have taken a page from the great diarist Samuel Peyps -- also one of 11 children -- and written about the parties instead.) I was out of debt for good, and saving money, by age 23.

Out of School and in Debt

On the other hand, today's 20-somethings face radically different financial challenges. Tuition at public universities has more than doubled since I graduated two decades ago, even accounting for inflation, according to Tamara Draut, author of "Strapped: Why America's 20- and 30-Somethings Can't Get Ahead" (Doubleday, 2006). According to Nellie Mae, the average college graduate has $18,900 in student loans.

Meanwhile, credit-card debt among 18- to 24-year-olds has soared more than 100 percent in the last decade. The average college senior had a balance of just over $3,200, Draut reports.

Not to sound like your grandmother, but I didn't have a credit card in college. Financial firms didn't hand them out with a free T-shirt to people with no credit history. My options were: a) monitor my cash flow; or b) go hungry. Today's 18- to 24-year-old debtors pay an average of 30 cents on the dollar to service their I.O.U.s, according to Draut. It's no wonder that Americans age 25 to 34 now have the second-highest rate of bankruptcy, just after those aged 35 to 44.

Relying on Plastic? How Uncreative

Then there's the Sex in the City quotient. In my early 20s, the only women I knew who could identify shoe designers by name (and bought their goods) worked on Wall Street. The aesthetic bar was lower for the rest of us. Today, fashion is ubiquitous, instantaneous, and, thanks to technology and automation, made in China and available online five seconds after the trend shows up.

When I started working, there were no cable channels strictly devoted to runway shows, no (admittedly beautiful) cell-phone designs to trade up to every few months, no magazines like In Style showing the masses how to look like Penelope Cruz at the Cannes Film Festival minutes after her photo-op. (There was, however, this scary little book called "Dress for Success" -- advocating a uniform for women consisting of a dark suit with shoulder pads, non-descript silk blouse, conservative "pumps," and frightful floppy silk bowtie -- which was religiously followed in certain circles. See Diane Keaton in "Baby Boom.")

If you're in your 20s and haven't figured this out, here it is: Credit-card companies are not like bartenders. They have no legal obligation to cut you off when you ask for more than you can handle. Draut's book profiles a 27-year-old named Elaine, who has $40,000 in credit-card debt, stemming in part from buying new furniture, flying to Paris, and financing the perfect wedding. Truthfully, this makes me feel like an idiot for cutting the eye drops out of my budget in my 20s.

On the other hand, I did manage to go to Paris a couple times during that decade (staying in cheap hostels) and had a cool wedding in New York City. (O.K., so my fiancé had to go to the meat-packing district the night before the event with our friend, a freelance chef, to buy 120 chickens that were cooked at another friend's restaurant. But we saved a small fortune on the catering. And it makes for a good story.) In my view, relying on credit cards is not only bad for your future, it demonstrates an appalling lack of creativity.

Gaining More Options in Life

Here's how I got out of debt: I shared a tiny apartment with a roommate and cut my housing costs in half. (My favorite was a woman training to be a licensed massage therapist at the Swedish Institute, who needed a body to practice on.) I brown-bagged my lunch; walked or took the subway or the bus; ran outside instead of joining a gym; shopped sample sales in the Garment Center; and never took up smoking. I hung out with other people who were both fun and as poor as I was. By my late 20s, my salary had risen, and then I joined a gym, traveled without having to stay in hostels, ate out more often, and continued to save.

For anyone with student loans, here's a guaranteed way to save: Consolidate your debt immediately to lock in today's lower interest rates. Last week, the Department of Education announced that the rate on existing Stafford Loans will jump to 7.14 percent on July 1 -- a rise of 1.84 percent. The rate on PLUS Loans for parents will also climb 1.84 percent, to 7.94 percent. Someone with $20,500 in student loans would save $3,245 over the course of a 10-year repayment period by consolidating now, according to College Loan Corp., a San Diego lender.

Even in my 40s, I still track my expenses, switch vendors when I can find a cheaper deal, and think hard before adopting new technology. (My TV is 12 years old, mainly because there are so many other things I'd rather do with my limited free time than watch TV.)

Living within my means in my 20s gave me more options in my 30s: The financial flexibility to risk working for myself and the ability to buy a home without a hugely stressful mortgage payment. I hope that living within my means now will give me still more options in my 50s and 60s: The ability to put my kids through college without burdening them with student loans -- and, with any luck, the opportunity to spend a little time in Paris when I'm retired.

So live within your means in your 20s. I guarantee it will change your life.