(MONEY Magazine) – Q. I am a 20-year-old college student who has just won a $62,000 out-of-court personal-injury settlement. Because I painfully earned it, I am planning on spending $5,000 or so on a used car and a couple of high-tech goodies. Another $5,500 will go for college expenses, leaving me with $51,500 to invest. I want to keep about half tax-exempt and $20,000 liquid. Any advice for the little rich kid? Name withheld by request Darien, Ill.

A. Applause, applause for setting a limit on your spending binge. Even without completing college, you have learned two important things: 1) money should be enjoyed; 2) but not too much. I have less enthusiasm, however, for your other ideas. Unless you have a tremendous income that you haven't disclosed, you -- like most students -- are probably in the low 15% tax bracket. So taxes should be the least of your worries. The amount you would save with tax-free securities would not be big enough to justify the sacrifice of three percentage points or more on total return. Go for growth instead. Also, keeping $20,000 liquid might tempt you to splurge on high-tack goodies like spring trips to Fort Lauderdale or beer-and-nacho blasts for your friends. You should keep about $5,000 in a money-market fund for emergencies (like, maybe your car will need a new transmission) and divide the rest among three or four diversified conservative growth mutual funds. See our mutual funds coverage, beginning on page 126, for ideas.

Q. My wife and I are both 42 years old. I sent away to the Social Security Administration for a benefits estimate. It said that when we reach age 62, we would receive about $500 a month. Does this mean $500 indexed for inflation, or just a flat $500 -- which, in 2010, might pay for a shoeshine? Tom Morris Las Vegas

A. Don't worry. You might even be able to afford a pair of shoes. Social Security payments are adjusted for inflation. Assuming that the consumer price index rises about 4% a year for the next 20 years and that the average wage increase stays about 1% ahead of prices (God willing), your monthly check in the year 2010 would be about $1,100. (By then, a $2 shine would cost you $4.38, and a $50 pair of shoes would go for $109.) The Social Security Administration apparently shies away from giving you the higher figure for fear that it will lull you into spending every dime you earn without making any effort to save for old age. That's hardly likely, since $1,100 a month is not exactly a princely income even in 1990. In any event, if you are really fascinated by the byzantine intricacies of Social Security -- and who wouldn't be? -- you can read all about them in the 1990 Guide to Social Security and Medicare, available for $4 by writing to Mercer Meidinger Hansen Inc., 1500 Meidinger Tower, Louisville, Ky. 40202.

Q. I read recently that the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development is studying a new type of mortgage called the PLAM that would make housing more affordable for median-income families who are locked out of the market by high monthly payments. Can you tell me more? Richard D. Sterchele Londonderry, N.H.

A. The PLAM, or price-level adjusted mortgage, could indeed make home buying less burdensome. And if endorsed this year as expected, it will be available from any Federal Housing Administration-approved lender. The price break works like this: your first payment is calculated at the prevailing real rate of interest (that is, the current mortgage interest rate minus inflation, or about 4%). Thereafter, the outstanding balance on your loan is kicked up or down each month to keep the payment in step with inflation. For example, you could take out a 30-year, $100,000 PLAM today for only $477 a month -- about half what you'd pay for a 9.8% fixed-rate mortgage and $285 less than for an 8.4% adjustable in its first year. True, if future inflation averaged only 4% a year, your final payment in 2020 would still be $1,547. But that scary- sounding figure would be equal in buying power only to the $477 you paid in 1990 dollars. PLAM-ophiles say this device makes housing more accessible in the early years, while opponents worry that incomes will not keep up with inflation. But HUD officials say that Jack Kemp, the agency's chief, could approve PLAMs any day. Maybe he's been too busy with the department's burgeoning scandals over PPLUMs (payments to political lackeys of undeserved millions). If you are in a rush, you might consider a graduated-payment mortgage like Citicorp's Homeowners Key. This fixed-rate mortgage offers discounted payments in the early years; for information, you can call Citicorp in New Hampshire at 603-627-9585.

Q. My son wants to know how to find a buyer for his extensive beer-can collection, which includes cans from virtually every country, special-issue cans (one from Iron City, honoring the 1978 Pittsburgh Pirates, for example) and even Billy Carter's Billy Beer. Do you have any suggestions? Thomas V. Hallett Ridgefield, Conn.

A. Gulp. I don't know how to break this to you, but your son's beer cans probably have not enlarged his assets -- and I sure hope the beer hasn't enlarged his tummy. According to Gainesville, Fla. beer-can dealer Dale Rogalski, ''less than one-tenth of 1% of any beer cans produced since 1973 are worth anything at all.'' And those that are aren't worth much. Billy Beer, the short-lived concoction of former President Jimmy Carter's late brother, would sell for only 25 cents to 50 cents a can -- roughly what it brought when it came out in the late 1970s. Old cans, however, are another cup of brew. Kent Ale, a pre-World War II beer made by Krueger Brewing Co. in Newark, N.J., might sell for about $3,000 a can today -- obviously, it's extremely rare. Moreover, the beer-can market has been as flat as day-old you-know-what: prices haven't risen significantly in 10 years. Still, if you want your son to can the collection and get it out of his bedroom, suggest that he advertise it in the American Breweriana Journal (American Breweriana Association, P.O. Box 11157, Pueblo, Colo. 81001; $1 for a 25-word ad), which goes to 1,400 collectors.

TO READERS: In November, I told a reader who was having trouble getting banks to accept a durable power of attorney that she ought to nag the bank officials until they came around. Now Eugene L. Smith, an attorney in Dearborn, Mich., offers another solution. He writes: ''The biggest problem comes when a bank refuses to honor a power of attorney after the person who executed it is no longer capable of filling out a new form. That, of course, is the very situation the power of attorney is supposed to prevent. I have been able to avoid this problem by naming specifically in the document every bank or asset account that the person who executes it possesses. That has eliminated many such offhand rejections.''