Innovation starts at home
While studying for a marketing exam the other night, I was reminded of the true definition of economy: the management of resources required to run a business, household, or government. Though it’s on a much smaller scale than the U.S Treasury, I realized that my small home on Guilford Ave has its own economy. My roommates and I supply the home with toilet paper, food, labor, rent, and other supplies and services to keep it running. Because we’re staying at the house, we’re able to go to work, pursue our degrees, and have a place to sleep at night. I only start this post in this manner to say the home is an economy, and you can treat your household like a business to save as much money as possible.
Don’t Pay for That
Having lived essentially paycheck to paycheck for the past seven months, I’ve noticed a common trend: the less I spend, the more I have for essentials such as raw chicken and parking tickets. Shocking, isn’t it? Fortunately, Mother Nature Network contributor Melissa Breyer has compiled a list of 15 Great Things you can Get for Free, and I’d like to share the highlights with you today.
- Textbooks are way more expensive than they’re worth. When publishers release barely modified, “new” editions each year, the new edition leaps in price, costing you as a student hundreds of dollars. Breyer recommends using Project Gutenberg to find free ebooks, but you could also search for international editions of textbooks (which are much cheaper than the domestic and may contain the exact same content), or simply use Google to search “filetype: pdf “textbook name” to land a free book.
Project Gutenberg has saved me in literature classes throughout high school.
- Education has been made more easily accessible by the Internet. Sites such as Khan Academy and University of Reddit have free online classes that individuals can take to expand their knowledge. If you want to learn a language, sites such as Duolingo, in which a user completes language challenges to advance his or her skills, is also a good match. For a Mother Nature Network list of free online educational institutions, please click here.
Use Duolingo to learn a new language!
- Cash is sometimes more expensive than it’s worth because of ATM fees. Many of my friends in college are not from the Baltimore area, and they have to pay ATM fees if they wish to withdraw money. You shouldn’t have to pay to get your money, so take advantage of cash back when making purchases with your debit card, start a local bank account in your city, or use the app ATM Hunter to find your bank’s nearest fee-free ATM.
The ATM Hunter App for iPhone and Android can save you money when you want your money.
Leave it up to our mothers to help us run a household with as few costs as possible. Please comment below with the ways you save money around the house!
– David
The Leader's Edge 