Lighten Up!

More than ever before, people want to make efficient use of their resources, reckless behaviour costs a lot of money. Whatever your motivation, there are many things that you can do to improve your home and reduce your ecological footprint at the same time.

Often, you may notice that your home is too dark in the evening. Even though you light up all the lamps and put them up at full power, you simply can’t see as well as you’d like. Poor lighting makes you feel sleepy, therefore you have no energy on an evening as well as causing eye strain.

Many individuals as a rule resort to buying bulbs with more output or even more lamps with more bulbs in them. Any new lamp you buy or stronger bulb you put in will have an influence on your pocket as they cost not only to buy, but to run as well.

To make your loft or house lighting more powerful you need to be looking at brightening up your home in other ways. To get the most of your light sources, you can make a small amount of minor alterations to save your dollars and learn how to benefit further from your home.

1. The most straightforward way to freshen up is to paint your property with bright colours. There are are a multitude of paints on the market that range from a dull to a bright colour scheme, even whites have different levels of brightness.

2. Painting may not be for every household or you may not have the time, so if your rooms have dark walls then look at replacing or renovating the furniture so it is a lighter colour. Items with a metallic finish are often useful for a dark room as it has a reflective surface unlike dark wood.

3. Place mirrors in strategic areas around the room or even around the entire building. As mirrors are so reflective they are a brilliant way of reflecting what small amounts of light you do have and give a certain ambience to a room.

4. If you aren’t up for repainting or buying new furniture, maybe you could look for things to clean up or dispose of from your living space. Clutter makes a room seem smaller and darker, keeping a minimalist appearance to a room could also improve its brightness.

5. Sometimes your drapes share a bit of the blame; pale curtains will throw more light back into the room than darker ones.

6. Look at the lighting you already keep in that room, as rearranging these could solve the difficulties, saving you time and money. Direct all bulbs to where you need light most and use existing mirrors and light surfaces to aid you increase the brightness of your room.

Loans For University Students

For over two decades, tuition fees in Canada have been on a rise. Currently, the growth of tuition fees is double the country’s inflation figure, which increases the financial burden of education all of us keen on learning.

Indebting oneself early in life is a serious burden to bring upon oneself. This means that all your outlooks, your future as far as you can see, contain some kind of a debt repayment schedule you must stick to.

The necessity of paying back your liabilities reduces your discretionary income – what’s left in your pocket when you’ve settled all your necessary recurring bills. In the more extreme cases, qualifying for a mortgage sufficient to buy you a worthy apartment or house may be nearly impossible

According to Statistics Canada, it lasts 7.4 years on average to get rid of tuition loans. This is a pretty extensive timespan, and it is only the average, so there are bound to be students who take even longer to do away with this immense weight. Hence, such person can hardly afford a mortgage until she or he is thirty.

Keeping a strong credit rating is thus critical. Stable rating may ensure that higher amount of financing, when asked for going may be obtained on better terms and more easily in general.

Well, you desperately want to become an owner of a real estate property? Mortgage is not that bad, however, since as soon as you’ve moved into your own dwelling, you have no rent any more. In effect, then, your mortgage is actually not that much harder on your budget if you have been renting before. Also, there is no need to purchase life insurance until one has kids or a dependent spouse. Hopefully, the university degree will give the ambitious young person more chances of getting accepted for a more lucrative vocation and let her or him achieve financial self-sufficiency sooner.

Fight In-House Air Pollution Easy And Green

Most people lack knowledge of a crucial fact: the air which stays inside our flats, schools and offices can be highly polluted. This may sound distressing, but no stress – there is a lot of trivial choices to purify the air in your flats.
My clients usually ignore the weight of air cleanness. Homeowners take it for granted that because their flats are clean, their indoor air is hygienic as well. However, light pollutants such as smoke, black mold spores, and skin particles can be extensive in even the cleanest of apartments. There are many air purifiers sold on the market, but if you’d rather go for a ecologic solution, we recommend the following options:

1. Green Plants
All vegetation are capable of expelling harmful particles from in-house atmosphere, test by NASA shows that certain purifying plants are remarkably efficient in expelling toxins and carbon dioxide from the air we breathe. A homeowner should have a purifying plants for every 9 sq m of living area. The more effective the purifying plants, the more air it can clean. The following purifying plants can be found in top: Janet Craig dracaena, English ivy, Australian sword fern, peace lily, rubber plant, and weeping fig.

2. Olatile oils
It was examined that distributing essential oils into the surroundings is one of the best options to sanitize the surroundings we live in. These essential oils boast certain antiseptic characteristics which aid to reduce chemicals and bacteria in the surroundings.

3. Beeswax
Standard paraffin candle sticks are made from petroleum sludge that intoxicates the surroundings every time you burn the candles. Candles made from natural wax, on the other hand, represent a great improvement over crude oil ones: when they are used, they cleanse the surroundings effectively , in the same time offering a wonderful honey odour, a calming and yellow fire. This is a wonderful solution for tall rooms - Toronto condos as an example

Natural wax is the only material able to produce negative ions, that help clean bacteria from the surroundings.

picture by DaraTSturm

How Can You Change Your Lifestyle So It Is Nature Friendly?

Everywhere you will overhear individuals talking about going green, what can you do to become more Eco friendly? We may appreciate the idea of saving money, but here are some tips that could save you money, maybe improve your health and be green friendly at the same time.

Donate your old glasses

Supporting many of people around the world with sight problems is as easy and donating your old glasses. According to the World Health Organization, nearly 87% of the world's sight impaired reside in developing countries. Just by giving away one pair of glasses you have helped improve someones life drastically. Old glasses are clearly not the major pollution source, but recycling this item gives you an extra good feeling.

Get a rain barrel

Why use water from in the home, which you are charged for, when there is a brilliant and free resource outdoors - the rain! Have a look around the shops to see a large range of tubs on offer, or be more environmentally friendly and make your own.

Instead of making use of a tumble dryer, let your clothes dry outdoors

Our mothers and grandmothers hung their clothing outside and they didn't have any issues with it. If you hang your clothing out, not only you don't need to pay for electricity to dry it, but your clothes will get the fresh smell of sun and wind, something you can never really get with an electric tool. Do not worry; it will not damage your social stading. Being eco friendly is in – do not feel apologetic, feel pleased instead!

Bathe less frequently, shower instead

Health issues can be exacerbated by bathing and showering too much or for long periods of time; apart from that your bills will rise and heating of water consumes lots of energy. You can drink the water from your taps safely but with the high concentration of chlorine in it, the fumes created when you heat it can have a serious impact on your health. One more brilliant thing to do is to use an attachment on your shower that cuts down the amount of water it lets out.

Share a car ride with some work mates

Car sharing is not a new discussion and it is supported by authorities, but many car owners still don't do it through lack of incentive or knowledge. Unfortunately, as a Toronto condos professional I need to drive a lot. Think about an average car driver, they commute about 100 km a week and approximately 5000 km a year. If you car share, then between you, you would save on approximately 170 litres of fuel and 400 kg of CO2 each year, think about how much you could share if there were 3 or 4 of you in a car. Some company's have a car sharing scheme already in place which is worth checking into, if not try and set one up yourself; ask people to see who would be interested in saving money.

Two of a kind

Year 2010 is gone with the wind, so is the previous decade. But memories remain and turn slowly into history- also the green ones. What were the most important green events of the decade? These two articles are trying to find the answer:

Green Events Over the Past Decade

and

Green Events Over the Past Few Years

Supporting the Needy - From Residences to Lives

We say change is great, well volunteers made a big change; from organising where people live to lives. In 2006 volunteers began aiding the poor after years of owning a company called Artful Organizers, where she was a personal organizer.

The organization is a healthy or wealthy community that is embodied for the rejected and abused. The Sanctuary strives to help and support everyone regardless of the colour of your skin or your faith. The community has members from all walks of life, both sexes and a diverse age group, nobody is excluded. Each year the Sanctuary gives help to thousands of individuals, assisting about 500 different people each week.

An outreach team of 2 volunteers or staff go out into the community providing help and support on an individual's own turf, many who have previously been let down or ignored by others. There is also a drop in centre, a health clinic and rehab provided, the charity believes in helping the entire person, a holistic approach. Another thing the charity does is give employment training, which can only mean more relevant employment for people.

To celebrate Xmas, the Sanctuary has a massive Christmas feast which takes place each year. With Xmas gift bags, a feast, talent shows and a play, this is really a special time for all those involved. Through the warmer months there is a 5k walk and in September the charity puts on a music concert. Whilst donations are wanted, the charity hopes that those that donate will also become involved in other ways. The rich and the poor, the charity want to could the gap. Those that feel that they have no self worth left are helped to see that their life is worth something, thereby giving them back their dignity. To really help these people, time, a feeling of camaraderie and friendship are just a couple of things that make a difference to an individual previously shunned by society.

The charity is not a replacement for social services but an extra service set up to help. Here we have individuals who were living on the street and they are now living in a home. These people could not do it by themselves, therefore the Sanctuary has helped them find a home and furnish it.

To give you an idea on one of the success stories of this mission, is one of a female born in Toronto and grew up there. The foster care system is where this young baby ended up not long after her birth due to horrendous wrongdoings. This poor baby never stood a chance of a nice life when it began with a family member setting fire to her crib. Poor hygiene led to her grandmother seeing her covered in cockroaches. but she was sexually abused. She bounced from foster home to foster home and relationship to relationship, and she was addicted to many things she shouldn't. With support from quite a few people the woman is now moving forward with her life and has been a regular at the sanctuary for 4 years.

Julie Kinnear is GTA MLS professional and volunteering activist.

Articles of the month!

Again, here is the summary of the top articles of previous month! Happy New Year everybody!

Wanting To Move Into A House in Toronto? The fourth part of my series of FAQ for home sellers and home buyers from GTA area. Follow also the second part.

Green lifestyle is my hobby and this article is proof. It summarizes the key green events of the last decade.

Don't forget to visit also my triplet from hubpages: What does MLS stand for? Solar panels - Canadian government grants and Asbestos In Buildings : Are You Endangered?