Everything is expensive these days. Just look at the facts: Flying home for the weekend is about $20 cheaper than calling home for 10 minutes; gas stations gave everyone a break for awhile but are back to their old tricks again; and the postage stamp has just complicated the lives of millions as its price has been raised to a whopping 33 cents.

When nothing is cheap, it’s time to start cutting corners. And for so many, the biggest corner is college. Iowa State tuition increases every year and is destined to keep increasing as long as the planet keeps spinning.

But now there’s a new book full of hope titled “Bears’ Guide to Finding Money for College: An updated guide to the not-well-understood sources of unconventional and ordinary financial help and how to pursue them.”

And yeah, the title is long, but quite necessary. This is not a narrowed-down list of hard-to-get scholarships like every other book on the shelf these days.

In addition to the addresses of over 30 available scholarship and grant money givers, John B. and Mariah P. Bear include many other inventive ways to get through college without owing the government your soul.

One chapter is titled “Getting Money the Old-Fashioned Way: You Earn It.” Listed in alphabetical order are odd jobs ranging from painting house numbers on curbs to tattooing and piercing.

The Bears even go so far to suggest bartering for cash and conducting “off-the-wall schemes,” which are surprisingly “Saved by the Bell”-like.

The authors of “Finding Money” also break out the constructive criticism and bluntly inform students that their number one flaw is “lack of creativity.”

While the Bears accuse kids of having no imagination, they also accuse financial aid counselors of “plowing the same overworked ground — over and over and over.”

Admirably, in addition to “Finding Money’s” own helpful advice, a list of other relevant books and a summary of other money-making strategies can be found as well.

“Finding Money” is packed with good ideas and helpful hints, and is also extremely easy to understand and relatively simple to weed through.

If a certain method of funding doesn’t seem appealing, just skip that chapter.

There a unique strategy in this guidebook for everyone.

3 1/2 stars out of five

Kelsey Foutch is a sophomore in journalism and mass communication from Waterloo.