I am a mother and a full time student working towards my college degree. I have financial limitations and constraints and I was always looking for practical ways to save money and recycle at the same time.
One day, it occurred to me that I was wasting tons of paper over the years writing notes to myself a "To Do" list or to write down ideas, thoughts etc. on discussions we had in school that would later translate into a research paper.
It hit me that while I was opening a "large white envelope" that was delivered to me, it had two small labels (recipient and sender). I was looking for a notepad and couldn't find one handy. I looked at the white envelope and it was one of those "ah hah!!" moments. It was like a light bulb when on in my head.
After I read and discarded the contents in the envelope, I decided to utilize the envelope as a writing medium. I wrote in almost all of the areas: front and back and then I took a scissors and cut it open and wrote on the inside of the envelope. That one large envelope is equivalent to a few pages of a notepad.
I was happy with the idea I came up with because the landfills throughout the country are already full of excess trash. I thought to myself, "Why should I throw out a potential writing paper and create more trash?"
I saved money from not buying any more notepads as they are now selling for as much as $4.00+. They were getting more expensive as time goes on and the best benefit of all is that I am recycling. I would be going "green", "eco-friendly" and helping the environment. I have to consider the current state of the environment and how we can continue to maintain and sustain recycling over to the next generation and so on and so forth.
From that moment on, I consciously look at each envelope that is sent to me and evaluate it for a potential writing paper. Also, I wanted to emphasize that the envelope does not have to be a white envelope. I have used yellow, gray, light blue, and beige color etc. envelopes. When I spot an envelope that meets my needs, I am thrilled beyond words. I hope this tip helps lots of people save money. I have never bought another pad ever again and so happy about it.
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Good idea! I recycle junk mail for my own purposes all the time. Not only do I use the blank side of an envelope to write grocery lists but use any contents of the envelope that are plain for scratch paper.
When I returned to school, I realized that all the computer rooms had printers closeby. Students would leave the paper that was partially printed, even if only a few words were on a page, for the trash, recycling, etc. I often took piles of barely used paper home. I used the clean sides for printing rough copies of my papers, for scrap paper for my math classes, for scrap paper at home, for copying rcipes from the internet, for jotting down notes, etc.
Also, each semester each student got a specific number of sheets of paper to use from school printers. During the first few semesters, I didn't use all of my alotment, and just kissed them good-by. I learned quickly that if I went into a Word program, I could run off as many blank sheets as I had left at the end of each semester, to take home and use whenever I needed clean paper, rather than lose them. I often went home with hundreds of sheets of paper at a time, which I had paid for in my tuition for specific classes, but hadn't used.
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