How to Live Sustainable on a Student Budget
Guest
Only wealthy people can afford a sustainable lifestyle?! - Far from it! Here are six tips to live sustainable on a student budget.
6 Tips for Sustainable Living As Student
#1 Buy your groceries at the farmers market.
It’s time to try out buying your groceries at the farmers market. The great thing about that: you will often be able to buy from the producers themselves. Therefore, the products are regional, fresh and usually cheaper. As the products are unpacked, you can buy the amount you really need and, even more, important you avoid using plastic packaging. You will quickly enjoy your sustainable way of shopping as you’ll have your time out from your busy student live, because at the farmer markets, it’s always possible to have a nice cup of coffee, snacks and a chat with local producers. You might actually learn something about their products, too!
#2 Cook yourself rather than eating out.
Cooking on your own is much cheaper than buying convenience foods or eating out. Besides that, it will allow you to save a lot of plastic packaging (if you stick to tip #1) which is even more sustainable. As chef cook you will have full control of all the ingredients and therefore the meal will be definitely healthier. If you cook your recipe in a large portion you are going to have a tasty meal available anytime after preparation when you need to study. Don’t forget about the legend recipes you gonna create together with other students.
#3 Eat less meat.
For many students, it’s still hard to imagine to become a vegetarian and not to have a burger at McDonalds anymore. But if you want to live more sustainable, there is no way around eating less meat. About 20% of the green house emissions lead back to the meat production. The reason for this is the output of methan of livestock and the forest removed for livestock farming. Vegetarian food is healthier and easier to manage with a student budget. It’s therefore worth to reduce the consumption of meat for the sake of health, environment and cost.
#4 Organise/Visit clothes exchange parties.
You’ll have a lot of fun organising a clothes exchange party together with your friends or neighbars at the THE FIZZ student residences. Everyone brings their clothes they haven’t been wearing over the last year and – also a nice side-effect – something to eat or drink. Then, the basar is opened and you’ll for sure find some cool and maybe even unique clothes. You’ll be surprised by all the nice stories you’ll gonna hear about where and how your student friends got this unique designer piece. And at the end of the evening, you’ll go home with a bag full of stuff you like, you will have saved money and, last but not least, you will have managed to give a new purpose to your unwanted clothes instead of throwing them away.
#5 Go public or by bike.
Everyone knows it: It’s not sustainable to use the car or to take a plane! But flight tickets are often cheaper than train tickets and it’s so convenient to use your car on a rainy day….right? And even if the majority of students doesn’t own a car, it’s worth to mention the benefits of more sustainable ways of transportation. The bike is the cheapest and healthiest way to move around. Plus, you’ll always find a parking space in the city center. But recently you can also find e-scooters which especially students enjoy to ride because they won’t arrive sweaty at the university. And if “it’s raining cats and dogs”, you still can go the old fashioned way and use public transportation.
#6 Get a sustainable job.
You want to do more than only moving to a sustainable lifestyle? What about finding a sustainable job? You would make a positive impact for the environment and, at the same time, fill up your monthly student budget.
There are many ways to live a more sustainable life and it’s getting always more easy. A lot of students become vegetarian or even vegan, they use e-scooters or public transportation and they try to reduce plastic consumption. This is a trendy new lifestyle, which is also affecting the job search. Once you start to have a sustainable mindset, you’ll probably also want to work for a climate change aware company and make yourself busy with useful work. Through this trend, many new interesting and sustainable jobs have been created. If you wish to apply for a job in a sustainable company, you can find some helpful application tips here.
Guest article by YoungCapital
All photo rights by International Campus GmbH.