What do you need to do to manage your student loans right? Mark Kantrowitz, publisher of financial aid web resource FinAid.org and scholarship-matching service FastWeb, has five recommendations:

1. Get Organized

Put all your paperwork for each loan in a separate file folder labeled with the name of the lender, loan ID, date borrowed and original loan balance. Flag payment due dates on your calendar at least a week in advance.

2. Don’t Miss Payments

With the national unemployment rate hovering at 9.7% and some economists warning a double-dip recession is a risk, it can seem difficult to justify a summer getaway.

But a week or two of charity work? That’s another story.

An increasing number of people are choosing “voluntourism”: travel that combines vacation with charity work. Service-minded adventurers can take a break, give back and, as the Los Angeles Times reports, maybe even score a tax write-off.

A key objective of the financial reform legislation currently being debated in Congress is, of course, to help protect consumers. Indeed, we wrote last month about an amendment to the Senate’s bill that would make individual’s credit scores more transparent.

 What is the rate of return for a $34 share of stock which pays a $3 annual dividend? According to the IRS, what is the maximum amount you are allowed to give any number of individuals every year, without facing any gift taxes? A “baby bond” usually refers to a bond that has a par value of less than what figure?

 Know the answers? Post them in the Comments field below. (I’ll let you know if you’re right in a post next week.)