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Jess
I'm 15 and I know I have a long way to go before I'm an adult and have my own family but I like planning how I want my life to go.
Does anyone have budgets for things in their household? Whether you have a family or live alone. I'd like to hear tips and other things like that.
Answer
OK: There is food electric etc... It is hard to tell right now with out knowing your income, cost of living etc... But good for you for thinking ahead. Here are ways to save money. For entertainment there are free things to take advantage of. The library for example. They let people get out free movies and books and some times have cheep or even free things for entertainment going on. Such as a class for something, or wine tasting for a small get together price for people that are of age.
For clothing: A lot of people are going green. This means people are buying recycled used clothing. Thrift stores and car port / yard sales are a way to reduce the new cost of clothing. Although it is good to buy something new from time to time. Saving money on the taxes. For example if you contribute to a non profit organization in 2013, you can get a rite off for your donation from the government. But you need to itemize your tax return to do so. Some people donate clothing and get money back at tax time for the donation.
Also to go green people are using solar panel electricity. This usually takes a few years to pay for itself. But you can start out small. Like if you have an out side shed you want to light, a couple of the cheep solar panels may do the job for years. About 60 dollars for two small ones. This would be an idea for a small green house. The bigger the green house the more panels you will need.
Glad your thinking ahead!
OK: There is food electric etc... It is hard to tell right now with out knowing your income, cost of living etc... But good for you for thinking ahead. Here are ways to save money. For entertainment there are free things to take advantage of. The library for example. They let people get out free movies and books and some times have cheep or even free things for entertainment going on. Such as a class for something, or wine tasting for a small get together price for people that are of age.
For clothing: A lot of people are going green. This means people are buying recycled used clothing. Thrift stores and car port / yard sales are a way to reduce the new cost of clothing. Although it is good to buy something new from time to time. Saving money on the taxes. For example if you contribute to a non profit organization in 2013, you can get a rite off for your donation from the government. But you need to itemize your tax return to do so. Some people donate clothing and get money back at tax time for the donation.
Also to go green people are using solar panel electricity. This usually takes a few years to pay for itself. But you can start out small. Like if you have an out side shed you want to light, a couple of the cheep solar panels may do the job for years. About 60 dollars for two small ones. This would be an idea for a small green house. The bigger the green house the more panels you will need.
Glad your thinking ahead!
Real ideas to impact on my school's environment?
Timaayy200
I am on the student government at my entire school [which is prep/1st grade to year 12] for 2013 (my graduating year). My role is the environment. In the past the environment ministers have done small things like introduce recycle bins and shorten school food store times. We're a reasonably environmental school, but my passion for the environment saw me doing small things like this when I was in middle school. I won many awards for those small things so expectations of me are high in my position and I want nothing less than to live up to that.
In 2013, I want to do something extraordinary that will leave my impact on the school. I don't want to do the typical things that we have all heard since birth like saving water, installing solar panels and energy-saving light bulbs or preventing litter. Plus all of those are already in place. I want to do so many big things that will set me apart from everyone. (This isn't a question of me wanting to be known or setting my expectations too high. This is me really wanting to go above and beyond. I've asked this question before and all I got back was people telling me to lower my expectations. That is not how I do things.)
Does anyone have ideas? Is there anything I can do that will meet these goals? Is there anywhere I can go/anyone I can contact to find some ideas because I'm stuck.
Thank-you all very much in advance.
Answer
I would think you need to identify the areas where you can make an impact. A lot would depend on what local customs you already have in place and in what country you live.
transportation to school: if a lot of the older students use cars, are there school busses they could take? If there aren't school busses, could you negotiate a deal with a local bus company to provide very cheap bus passes if everybody is forced to buy one whether they need it or not? We had something like that at an university we attended. It was about $50 for half a year of a free bus pass. Which is a substantial saving for a student using bus, and not prohibitive for somebody who refuses to. The aim was to get students to use public transportation.
energy use in school. I don't think there is terribly much you can do. There are mandated minimum temperatures and you can't make everybody come with a thick sweater in winter so the heating can get lowered a few degrees. You could however look into an energy audit of the buildings - maybe your local electric company would offer one for free. Then you could have a fund drive for improvements - it's going to cost money and probably need better insulation
school garden. If an option a school garden is a good way for students to learn about nature and about growing their own food. Might be fun to grow mushroom in logs like shitake or oyster mushrooms, learn about herbs and weeds which can actually be used for food. Maybe also research living walls and vertical gardening if you don't really have space. Salad can be grown in vertical gardens and they look cool.
I guess another thing you could try is drives where people bring electronic waste or special waste from home. A lot of communities have them once in a while for paint or other toxic waste. Having one in a school as a regular event might get a lot of toxic stuff out of garbage cans.
You could also have recycling drives where people bring recyclable from school. If you collect e.g. aluminum cans you can sell them to a scrap yard and help funding your school garden.
You can also have students volunteer to clean up the neighborhood of the school from trash as a regular event.
Use the internet. Look what other schools have done in the more ambitious projects. You probably would best work with the community the school is in and volunteers from school providing help.
I would think you need to identify the areas where you can make an impact. A lot would depend on what local customs you already have in place and in what country you live.
transportation to school: if a lot of the older students use cars, are there school busses they could take? If there aren't school busses, could you negotiate a deal with a local bus company to provide very cheap bus passes if everybody is forced to buy one whether they need it or not? We had something like that at an university we attended. It was about $50 for half a year of a free bus pass. Which is a substantial saving for a student using bus, and not prohibitive for somebody who refuses to. The aim was to get students to use public transportation.
energy use in school. I don't think there is terribly much you can do. There are mandated minimum temperatures and you can't make everybody come with a thick sweater in winter so the heating can get lowered a few degrees. You could however look into an energy audit of the buildings - maybe your local electric company would offer one for free. Then you could have a fund drive for improvements - it's going to cost money and probably need better insulation
school garden. If an option a school garden is a good way for students to learn about nature and about growing their own food. Might be fun to grow mushroom in logs like shitake or oyster mushrooms, learn about herbs and weeds which can actually be used for food. Maybe also research living walls and vertical gardening if you don't really have space. Salad can be grown in vertical gardens and they look cool.
I guess another thing you could try is drives where people bring electronic waste or special waste from home. A lot of communities have them once in a while for paint or other toxic waste. Having one in a school as a regular event might get a lot of toxic stuff out of garbage cans.
You could also have recycling drives where people bring recyclable from school. If you collect e.g. aluminum cans you can sell them to a scrap yard and help funding your school garden.
You can also have students volunteer to clean up the neighborhood of the school from trash as a regular event.
Use the internet. Look what other schools have done in the more ambitious projects. You probably would best work with the community the school is in and volunteers from school providing help.
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