Aww – the holidays! The season of gift giving, memory making and worrying about your budget.

Okay, that last one doesn’t sound like the merry and bright holidays we all know. That’s why this holiday season, USC Credit Union has combined the best time of year with an exclusive Holiday Loan to help you spend more time on making memories than worrying about your wallet. 

Memorial Day is right around the corner and so are some great deals on a new car! If you’re in the market for a new automobile, maybe you think the easiest way to get your dream car financed is to obtain dealer financing at the time you buy the car. In a sense, that’s true – as long as you don’t mind spending more time and money than necessary just to make things “easy.”

Remembering back to when I graduated college, there are many things I wish I could go back and tell my younger self. Some are truisms that you can carry through life – like avoiding debt -- and others are more palpable at the moment – like hard work trumping your piece of paper.

I knew nothing about managing money when I graduated college and, sadly, I believe I was not alone in that experience. Most graduates – and there were 2.85 million in 2013 – are focused on getting a job, moving to wherever that job is and living in the real world – not financial literacy.

With that in mind, here are four basic financial steps you should take as a newly minted college graduate. If you're still looking for a job, these steps can still be implemented on a smaller scale.