How to save money every day

Making simple changes to your spending can be an easy way to help you start saving. Learn how to save money on everyday expenses like groceries, transportation and entertainment.

Self-study activity:
Watch the video and answer the questions below.



1. What can you do not to buy on impulse at the supermarket?
2. Why may sales or discounts not be advisable?
3. 'It is advisable to save on the things that are important to us.' True or false?
4. How can you prevent throwing away spoiled groceries?
5. What time of the day is electricity cheaper?
6. How can you find out what petrol stations offer the cheapest fuel?
7. What is ‘a spontaneous meal out’ an example of?


You probably already know some of the basics, like how making your own coffee or bringing your lunch to work can help you save hundreds of dollars a year. If you're doing that, definitely keep it up. But let's look at a few other ways you can save on everyday expenses and how some simple decisions that you make every day can help you save money.

The supermarket is a great place to start because there are a lot of easy ways to cut down on your shopping bill. You may already be doing things like making a list to cut back on impulse buying, clipping coupons, or using apps to find deals, and even looking at the price per unit to help you get the most for your money.
But there are even more ways you can save. For example, when you see a sale or discount, be strategic. Sales and discounts can be great opportunities to save on things you need, but stores often offer incentives for items that a lot of people wouldn't normally get. So it can pay to be selective when considering any discounts you might be offered.
And while you're considering priorities, spend on what's important, save on what's not. For example, for some people, things like organic food or your favourite brands might be important to you; for others, what's important may be different. The point is that it might be worthwhile to spend a bit more on the items you care about but look for ways to save on the things that are less important to you to keep you on budget. Making simple trade-offs like these can help you save money without giving up what's important.
Finally, before you even make a shopping list, consider your actual eating and cooking habits. A good idea is to plan your meals ahead of time or challenge yourself to eat at least one more meal at home each week. This may help prevent you from tossing out spoiled groceries that you didn't eat or ordering takeout because you didn't buy enough food for the week. This can save you hundreds of dollars each year.

Keeping with household expenses and bills, you probably already turn off the lights when you leave a room and unplug gadgets when you aren't using them, right? But there are some other small changes you can make that can help you save even more around the house. For example, did you know that most utility companies charge more for electricity during different parts of the day? Peak hours, like the middle of the day, when more people are using electricity, often have substantially higher rates compared to early mornings or late at night. Doing your laundry or running your dishwasher off peak can likely help you save on your utility bill. You can check out your utility company's website to see if they list their peak hours or contact them directly.

Let's move on to transportation. Gas prices can be unpredictable, but technology could be a way to help you save. There are plenty of websites and apps that can help you locate which gas station in your area might be offering the cheapest prices. And depending on how often you drive and where you live, you may consider ditching your car altogether. Public transportation might be one option, and there are a number of car-sharing programs that allow you to affordably rent vehicles short term. And for the truly dedicated, how about biking? It's certainly a cost-effective and healthy alternative to both driving and public transportation.

It can be easy to follow others into overspending, but try getting creative and occasionally plan activities with your friends and family ahead of time that can help you avoid temptations, like a spontaneous meal out.

Saving money doesn't have to mean sacrificing fun! It pays to take some time to figure out where you're spending and what you're willing to cut back on. You don't necessarily have to do the math on every single decision you make, but being mindful of where your money is going and how simple trade-offs here or there can add up over the long run can help you get creative and find your own ways to trim costs every day.

KEY:
1 make a list, clip coupons, use apps to find deals, look at the price per unit
2 because many people don’t need those products
3 false
4 by having one more meal at home each week
5 in the early morning or late at night
6 through websites and apps
7 temptations that lead to overspending

Extensive listening: Poverty isn't a lack of character; it's a lack of cash

"Ideas can and do change the world," says historian Rutger Bregman, sharing his case for a provocative one: guaranteed basic income.

Learn more about the idea's 500-year history and a forgotten modern experiment where it actually worked — and imagine how much energy and talent we would unleash if we got rid of poverty once and for all.

Rutger Bregman is one of Europe’s most prominent young thinkers. The 28-year-old historian and author has published four books on history, philosophy and economics. His History of Progress was awarded the Belgian Liberales prize for best nonfiction book of 2013. The Dutch edition of Utopia for Realists became a national bestseller and will be translated in 16 languages this year. Bregman has twice been nominated for the prestigious European Press Prize for his journalism work at The Correspondent. His work has been featured in The Washington Post and The Guardian and on the BBC.

You can read a full transcript here.

Reading test: Russian explorers find 'swamp' of Soviet money

Read the BBC article Russian explorers find 'swamp' of Soviet money and choose the option A, B or C which best completes each gap. 0 is an example.

A group of explorers in Russia have found around a billion roubles in old Soviet money at an abandoned mine, but it's all completely (0) … .

The group from Saint Petersburg, who publish a blog on abandoned sites across Russia, (1) … the money after following rumours that large quantities of cash (2) … in old missile silos near Moscow after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Komsomolskaya Pravda news website reports. After travelling for several hours across rough terrain in Russia's Vladimir region, they found the mine literally overflowing with cash.

The site contains an estimated one billion roubles ($18m; £13.5m at current exchange rates, or $33.3m at the "official" Soviet rate in 1991) in Soviet Union banknotes of various denominations issued between 1961 and 1991, all (3) … legal tender in the Russian Federation. The mine (4) … in recent years, leaving what was essentially a swamp of banknotes bearing the face of Vladimir Lenin, the explorers' YouTube channel shows.

According to their (5) … of events, elderly locals told the team about the mine, but said that nobody (6) … go near the place because it was linked to the Soviet Union's ballistic missile programme, and contaminated with radiation. (7) …, Geiger counters showed that this was not the case.

Team member Olga Bogdanova said that the sight of such "riches" was difficult to convey in words. "There's delight and some sadness, (8) … you realise that this is a bygone era which will never return, that all this money would have been more than enough for anybody," she said. Just 100 roubles would have been a very good salary back in Soviet times.

Fellow explorers Anton Alekseev and Sergey Volkov were (9) … interviewed on Rossiya1 television, where the presenter noted that the (10) … was dumped following a government decision at the end of the Soviet Union, and that this might be one of at least three such sites across Russia.

The video has caught the imagination of social media users, many of whom wish that the money was (11) … legal tender. "I would dive in there like Scrooge McDuck," says one user, while another exclaimed, "I wish I (12) … have a time machine, return with a pack of those banknotes and buy myself a controlling stake in Google, Gazprom, Rosneft, and never work again."

0 Example:
A. priceless
B. valuable
C. worthless

1
A. came across
B. came round
C. came up to

2
A. had been dumped
B. have been dumped
C. have dumped

3
A. any longer
B. any more
C. no longer

4
A. drowned
B. flooded
C. inundated

5
A. account
B. narrative
C. tale

6
A. could
B. dared
C. tried

7
A. Although
B. Despite
C. However

8
A. because
B. even though
C. so

9
A. additionally
B. incidentally
C. subsequently

10
A. bucks
B. cash
C. currency

11
A. already
B. still
C. yet

12
A. can
B. could
C. will

Photo: BBC

KEY: 
1A 2A 3C 4B 5A 6B 7C 8A 9A 10B 11B 12B

Talking point: Money

This week's talking point is money. Before getting together with the members of your conversation group, go over the questions below so that ideas come to mind more easily the day you get together with your friends and you can work out vocabulary problems beforehand.

Look at the statements 1-8. Do you agree, partly agree or disagree? Give examples to support your opinions.
1 Money is for spending today. Who know what will happen tomorrow?
2 It’s important to save at least 10% of your salary each week.
3 If I can’t afford to buy something, I’m happy to borrow the money.
4 I’m always looking for new ways to make money.
5 I like to shop around for the best price before I buy something.
6 I only like buying things that are a good investment for the future.
7 Spending large amounts of money makes me feel nervous.
8 Having a regular income is better than having a lot of money one day and a little the next.
How are your attitudes different to your parents’ attitudes to money?

Teaching financial literacy
1    What does it mean to be good with money?
      A saving money for the future
      B not spending much money
      C making your money grow
      D spending money wisely
      E getting the most for your money
      F being rich
2    Are you good or bad with money? In what way?
3    Did your parents teach you lessons about money?
4    Did you learn any financial skills at school?
5    Is it important for schools to teach financial skills to children? Why? At what age?

Uncovering the secrets of North America's largest diamond

Africa is home to the world’s largest diamonds - but advances in mining technology are enabling other regions of the world to get in on the act. Most recently, Canada unearthed the biggest diamond ever found in North America - the Foxfire. It has spent the last couple of months on display at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History in Washington.

Self-study activity:
Watch the video and answer the questions below about it.



1. When did the story of the Foxfire diamond begin?
2. Why do we know the Foxfire diamond was bigger at some stage?
3. When was the Foxfire discovered?
4. How much did Deepak Sheth pay for the diamond?
5. What will happen to the Diavik mine in a few years’ time?

The story of the Foxfire diamond began two billion years ago, when it was forged by fire and forces deep beneath the Earth. Now the largest uncut diamond from North America is being studied by scientists at the National Museum of Natural History.
It looks like a lump of quartz.
I think a lot of people would agree with you and I'm sure a lot of people, if they saw that just laying along the side of the road, would probably not even think about picking it up.
Diamonds are as mysterious as meteorites. Both travel through time and space to offer clues about the origins of the universe. These diamonds perilous journey is even more remarkable as most are destroyed or splintered by the volcanic action that propels them at high speed to the Earth's surface.
We know by looking at these flat surfaces that there was more to this diamond at one time, that during either this violent descent as part of this volcanic eruption, or the explosion at the surface, or the mining operation, something caused this diamond to be broken and these flat faces are the broken cleavage surfaces, so someplace, someplace there are other pieces to this diamond.
Better get hunting.
Better get looking.  We don't know this is the biggest piece or the smallest piece. Somewhere there are other pieces that would fit on to these flat surfaces right here.
The Foxfire was discovered in 2015 in one of the most inaccessible parts of the world, the Diavik mine in the barren lands of Canada's Northwest Territories, about 130 miles from the Arctic Circle.
The mine spends most of the year frozen in snow. Last year the Foxfire was sold at an auction to Deepak Sheth, a businessman and collector.
So can I hold it?
Of course, of course, please. You’re holding a history.
Holding history that's very heavy.
Yes, it is hundred and eighty-seven point sixty-three carat diamond. It's a miracle of nature.
How much did you pay for it?
Many, many millions of dollars.
How many millions?
I'm sorry. [I] cannot divulge that.
But it's worth many, many millions, it’s a multi-million dollar diamond.
Yes, it is.
I'm feeling quite nervous you can take it back.
Sure, sure.
Mr Sheth plans to keep the diamond in its rough condition but anyone hoping to find its missing parts had better hurry. In just a few years the Diavik mine will close, leaving any treasure buried beneath the ice.
Jane O'Brien, BBC News Washington.

Key:
1 two billion years ago
2 by looking at its flat surfaces
3 in 2015
4 he won’t say, many millions
5 it will close

New £1 coin to appear in 2017

A new £1 coin will enter circulation in 2017 - and the current coin will cease to be legal tender shortly afterwards. It means that all machines selling items from train tickets to chocolate bars will have to be updated.

Self-study activity:
Watch the video and answer the questions below about it.



1. What colour will the new pound coins be?
2. How long have the old pound coins been around for?
3. When is the official launch date of the new pound coins?
4. What are some of the British icons the new pound coins will be commemorating?
5. What will the old pound coins stop being legal?


They've been around since 1983, but they won’t be around for much longer. This year, all of the UK’s old pound coins will be phased out and replaced by these, shiny dodecagons with a gold-coloured outer ring and a silver-coloured inner ring, both thinner and lighter than the outgoing model.
The fact it’s been around for over 30 years, it’s served this country really well but the counterfeiters have caught up with it, so it’s time to introduce something new for the 21st century, and that’s what we’re doing with the new one-pound coin.
More than a billion of the twelve-sided coins will flood into circulation on March the 28th, boasting new security features including a hologram that changes from a pound symbol to the number 1 when seen from different angles.
But that’s not all. Joining them in your purses and pockets will be three new designs for the two-pound and fifty-pence piece.
We will be commemorating Jane Austen, the great British writer, Isaac Newton, the great British scientist. We’ll also be issuing a coin in connexion with the centenary of the First World War, and be commemorating the beginnings of the Royal Air Force, the royal flying corps.
In the meantime, the government’s urged stockpilers of the round pound to act quickly. The famous quid loses its legal tender status on October 15th, leaving less than ten months to bank them or spend them.
Jon Ironmonger, BBC News.

Key:
1 gold and silver
2 thirty years
3 28th March (2017) 
4 Jane Austen, Isaac Newton, the First World War,  the Royal Air Force 
5 October 15th (2017)

Reading test: The death of saving

For this week's reading test we are going to practice the multiple choice task. Read The Daily Mail article The death of saving: With pitiful interest rates, a third of us are not longer putting a penny aside and choose the option A, B or C which best completes each sentence. 0 is an example.

Britain is no longer a nation of savers – with a third us not putting aside a single penny at the end of each month. A report into social mobility in the UK warns that families can no longer afford to put money aside for a rainy day or to save for a holiday or home. Some 31 per cent have nothing left to put in the bank when the month is over, while 4 per cent save less than £10. Overall, half of the population save £100 or less. Only 23 per cent save £200 or more.
The Social Mobility Commission, which will today launch its annual State of the Nation report, said Britain was now a country of ‘haves and have nots’. People have also been given less incentive to save by rock bottom interest rates in recent years.
In addition, banks and building societies have been accused of exploiting savers by slashing hundreds of savings rates since the Bank of England cut the official interest rate in August from 0.5 per cent to 0.25 per cent. Some accounts have been chopped to zero, or to 0.01 per cent. Britons are currently saving only 5.1 per cent of their disposable income. This compares to 7.4 per cent only two years ago, according to official figures.
The Social Mobility Commission findings are also a damning criticism of successive governments – led by the Tony Blair regime – which have failed to improve social mobility. In 2004, the then Labour prime minister promised to make the spread of greater social mobility the cornerstone of his third term. Gordon Brown and David Cameron also promised to do more to improve the life chances of the less well-off. Yet, the public remains deeply pessimistic, despite hundreds of millions of pounds being spent and a number of high-profile initiatives being launched. 
Nearly half of people – 45 per cent – believe that, in Britain today, where you end up in society is mainly determined by your background and who your parents were, according to a YouGov poll of 1,655 adults carried out for the commission.  In contrast, only 29 per cent feel that Britain is a country where everyone has a fair chance to go as far as their talent and their hard work will take them. A majority of adults – 55 per cent – believe that children from privileged backgrounds are more likely to secure a place at university than those from less well-off backgrounds. Exactly half say they are also given more opportunities to get a foot in the workplace by securing work experience or unpaid internships.
Social mobility tsar Alan Milburn, a former Labour Cabinet minister, said: ‘Britain has a deep social mobility problem and the growing sense that we have become an “us and them” society – where a few unfairly have power and wealth – is deeply corrosive of our cohesion as a nation. ‘It is no surprise that populism of Right and of Left is on the march when a growing number of people feel like they are losing out unfairly.’
The study found the most sought-after professions have become even less representative than the most selective universities. Only 4 per cent of doctors, 6 per cent of barristers and 12 per cent of solicitors have working-class origins.
In July, Mrs May pledged in Downing Street: ‘If you’re from an ordinary working class family, life is much harder than many people in Westminster realise… The government I lead will be driven not by the interests of the privileged few, but by yours.’


0 Example:
According to a report into social mobility
A. around 25% of the population can save at least £200.
B. families can’t go on holiday any more.
C. families spend all their money before the end of the month.

1 The Social Mobility Commission has said
A. the country is divided between those with economic means and those without.
B. people are being encouraged to save.
C. interest rates are getting higher.

2 Britons
A. are not saving at all.
B. are saving well over 5% of their income.
C. sometimes get no interest on their accounts.

3 The Social Mobility Commission has also concluded
A. people not having so much money improved their standard of living with David Cameron.
B. popular campaigns to improve the living conditions have failed.
C. Tony Blair’s governments fulfilled his promises.

4 In today’s Britain
A. half of the population believes talent is a key factor for a person’s future.
B. hard work has no use to improve in life.
C. the social position determines a person’s future.

5 The YouGov poll also found
A. only the rich manage to secure a place at university.
B. people from privileged backgrounds find work easily.
C. work experience will get you a better chance of getting a job.

6 In Alan Milburn’s opinion
A. British society is getting more and more extremist.
B. populist political parties are taking control.
C. power and wealth corrupt people.

7 The study also found
A. British universities are more democratic than it was thought.
B. selective universities are offering less popular degrees.
C. the social class divide is obvious in some professions.

KEY: 
1A 2C 3B 4C 5C 6A 7C

Living paycheck to paycheck

The Vories family lives on a volatile income — not knowing how much each paycheck will contain month-to-month.

Self-study activity:
Watch the video and say whether the statements below are true or false.



1. The Vories have to pay the electricty bill on the 8th of each month.
2. The Vories have been unemployed for a long time.
3. The Vories don't own a car.
4. The Brighton Center is a charity.
5. The Vories have ups and downs in their day-to-day.
6. The Vories spend around five hundred dollars a month in medications.
7. They didn't buy their son basketball shoes because they had no money.


I just look at what’s the day that it is due, what’s the mercy day, what’s the actual day that I have to pay this bill by. I don’t even look at it month to month. The electric bill is due like the 8th but I can pay it on the 25th, you know when we’re paying bills this Monday, and that’s one of the bills I’m gonna be paying.
The Vories family is one many in America that lives on a valid all income. Like thousands who rely on seasonal or contract work, money comes in each week but it’s rarely the same amount. Financial planning becomes about the near future, about paying the bills when, not if the paychecks stop. Erica works full time at the IRS as the family’s primary source of income. Her husband Alex was laid off last year from Fidelity Call Center and can only find seasonal work. His last contract ended right before Thanksgiving, so Alex returns to an employer he’d had in high school, The Rosa’s Pizza.
Hopefully the Rosa’s is enough to keep us going. An accident and a breakdown left the family carless, so Alex borrows his father’s car to deliver pizzas at night. Every week is a delicate balancing act of time, money and resources.
We don’t have a savings account or anything like that. And we have one, but there’s no money in there.
And we have like 401k’s at our work where we can put it. I have never been able to put in because…
I had to cash mine out from Fidelity to pay bills.
Hey, Josh, I brought food to eat? Are you hungry?
A little bit of income, some odd jobs, help from parents, the Vories are hardly the only family in this position. A local non-profit, the Brighton Center, provided emergency help to the Vories and over 6800 households last year. Nearly 71% of those families had income.
I started praying and asking the Lord, Lord, you know, will you give me an idea to write a play? It’s a way to tell people what I’ve been through without having the opportunity to tell somebody one on one.
And when the housing bubble came down it just crashed everything I had. I lost my job, my house.
Before that bad stuff happened to you, why would you believe all the Jesus stuff?
We will have one good, two weeks and we’ll be like okay we know these two weeks it’s going to be great but we won’t even know in advance we’ll be okay. But next two weeks, nothing.
I don’t have nothing right here, right now.
It will be hard to go to the grocery store and say, okay I only have, you know, 20 to 30 dollars to spend and I have to make it so that four of us can eat.
No, no ice-cream.
Yes! Ice-cream! I don’t want anything else.
They’ll ask for stuff all the time. ‘Can we go get an ice-cream’, and we have to be… the parents let’s say, guys you don’t understand, we just don’t have money.
Family health issues further complicate things. Alex has diabetes, Erika fibromyalgia, their oldest kid has severe ADHD and their youngest, Josh, has mild autism. It costs the family a couple hundred dollars monthly in medications alone. At time the Vories borrow ahead of their next pay cheque at a steep interest rate just to make minimum payments.
You see how things are going up and it’s like how am I gonna be able to give them a meal that is going to nurture them because, you know, cereal is not going to cut it.
I’m tired too, pal.
I was gonna pay some bills today and our son needed some basketball shoes and grandma gave us some money to buy some, but we didn’t have the chance to cash the cheque, so we took it out of the account and then we’re not going to put the money until tomorrow, and tomorrow is like the last day to pay the electric bill, so, oh thank God it ain’t raining, that’s what stinks about one car, if it’s pouring rain we are going to get soaked.
I have this tendency to say to her ‘I think we are almost there, I think we are almost there’ and then we just don’t get there.

Key: 
1F 2F 3T 4T 5T 6F 7F

Talking point: Cheap holidays

This week's talking point is cheap holidays. Before getting together with the members of your conversation group, go over the questions below so that ideas come to mind more easily the day you get together with your friends and you can work out vocabulary problems beforehand.

Read some of the ideas for cheap holidays. Discuss the questions with a partner.
1 What do you think are the pros and cons of each idea?
2 Do you know anyone who has done any of these things? Were they happy with the experience?
3 Think of some other ideas for saving money on a holiday and share them with the members of your conversation group. Which tips are the most useful? Which ideas would you be more willing to try?


1 Go couch-surfing. On websites like couchsurfing.org, local people will let you sleep on their sofa for free. It's not luxury travel, but you'll meet friendly locals and see how they really live.

2 Swap houses. Exchange houses with someone in the place you're going to visit. You stay in their place, and they stay in yours. Websites like homelink.org can arrange this for a small fee.

3 Save on travel costs. Book early for good offers with low cost airlines. Use special services such as InterRail for travelling around Europe by train, or check out car-sharing websites like ridefinder.eu.

4 Eat street food. In many cities, even really expensive ones, you can find food which is both tasty and cheap at stalls in the street. For example, try crépes in Paris, kebabs in Istanbul, tacos in Mexico City. Most places have their own delicious specialty.

5 Try voluntourism. These holidays combine volunteer work and tourism. Help in an orphanage, work on an organic farm, and more — all for free. You'll save money and have experiences you'd never find on a package holiday.

6 Don't move from home: Staycation. A staycation is a period in which an individual or family stays home and visits places within driving distance, sleeping in their own beds at night. Staycations are usually organized around a theme: visiting monasteries, visiting cellars, doing advanture sports.

To illustrate the topic, watch this eHow video where writer Sophie Uliano tells us how to organise a staycation.




Hi, I'm Sophie Uliano, author of "The Gorgeously Green" book series, and today I want to talk to you about how to create a staycation.
Now, what is a staycation, and why on Earth do a staycation? Well, a staycation is as it sounds. You're going to stay at home in your own city instead of getting on a plane and traveling somewhere else.
Why on Earth do that? Well, two very good reasons. One, it's going to save you a tremendous amount of money, and two, it's also going to really reduce your carbon footprint because obviously you're not getting on an airplane and flying somewhere, which is always a very, very positive thing for mother Earth.
So what are the few things, a few key points that make for a very successful staycation? Number one is the planning. Now, make sure that you plan it as you would a regular vacation. So, on a regular vacation you're going to be getting on line and you're going to be picking your hotel. You're going to be picking your activities. You're going to be basically creating an itinerary. So, for your staycation, do exactly the same because if you don't plan an itinerary you're going to end up just slipping back to your hold habits. Oh, I'm just going to go to the office, I'm just going to check my emails, I'm just going to lie around vegging out. No, no, no, no, no, you've got to have that itinerary. So planning, very important, what day are we going to start it, what time of the day are we going to start as a family, two o'clock on Friday afternoon, and then you're going to start planning things like let's plan such and such a museum or art gallery. Let's go to a botanical garden that we've never been before, etc. Now, the next point is to be a tourist in your own city which is, this is what I really like because we never are, so maybe take a tour bus and go and look at sites that you would never even dream of going to see, really fun especially if you have kids. Go and look at local sites that probably everybody comes to your city to see but you never do.
Now I would say that one of the primary rules, there's only got to be one rule on this staycation, and that has got to be turn it off, and I cannot stress the importance of this because I find it's, obviously we all do. Now, it's so tempting just to check the BlackBerry and the emails or the computer, and I think that as a couple or as a family, you have to all sit down and say right, this is what we're going to do. We're going to pretend we're on, it's like a beach in Hawaii where we wouldn't be sitting, hopefully we wouldn't be sitting or checking things, and we're going to pick a time, two o'clock on Friday afternoon when everything will be turned off and phones will all be put away in one place. Now, good for you as a family if you can take three days with absolutely no switching it back on and if you can do that, I promise you you will have a sense of peace and wellbeing that you haven't had for a very very long time.
Now, if there are some really urgent concerns, if you have teenagers that say no way or you have a serious office emergency, then maybe plan a check in time, ten minutes a day when you'll all just spend that ten minutes to check in. So, these are some very simple things that you can do to create a very simple staycation.
Finally, just think about the exercise factor because in your own city or your own environment you can do things like take hikes that you've never hiked before. You can all hire bicycles and decide that for three days instead of even getting in your car you're going to bicycle around your city. So, to have a wonderful relaxing vacation you do not have to get on a plane or book an expensive hotel. Try having a staycation at home in your own city. So, I'm Sophie Uliano and you can always do things yourself for less money and do it gorgeously.

Changing face of California agriculture

Mark Bittman visits the Central Valley to learn how Hmong farmers can sustain and expand their businesses in the face of huge cultural changes.

Self-study activity:
Watch the video and answer the questions below.



1 Where and when can you buy a Japanese eggplant in California?
2 How far from the market do the Hmong families live?
3 When did the Hmongs arrive in US?
4 What are some of the challenges that the Hmong farmers are facing?
5 On how much land does Bentley Vang grow his crops?
6 What is the new project Jennifer is initiating with Hmong farmers?
7 What is the other project that she mentions?
8 What are some of the new measures the Hmong farmers have implemented as a result of the second project?

I'd like pretty much everyone to know that I've never had more fun cooking than I have since moving to California. One recent meal was a simple eggplant sandwich, but it wasn't your normal run-of-the-mill globe eggplant but a Japanese eggplant, which you can pick up at almost any decent market in the Bay Area, or for that matter, the state, most times of the year.
At the downtown Berkeley farmer's market there are several Hmong families selling their produce. They drive more than three hours from Fresno, which is home to the nation's largest Hmong farming community.
On a chilly morning, I was joined to the market by UC Berkeley's Jennifer Sowerwine. She helps small scale Hmong farmers sustain and expand their businesses. I sat down with Jennifer to learn more about what she calls the changing face of California agriculture.
The Hmong farmers, they've been farming since they arrived from Laos, beginning in around the 1980s or so. They were able to access small plots of land and adapt a lot of their cultural practices in farming here in the Central Valley, you know, in this hotbed of corporate agriculture. And so they began slowly cultivating a lot of the crops they were familiar with and then they began looking, seeking out markets.
So I was out there in Fresno a couple of years ago, saw some Hmong farmers. And I thought it was really interesting. They were struggling, needless to say. You have all these small farmers doing real food, mostly for their communities, but when you go to standard supermarkets you might as well be in Boise. What's happening with the food in Fresno that small farmers are growing? Where is it getting to?
You're right. The Hmong farmers, you know, are up against a lot of challenging odds. They've had huge challenges with limited English language and limited ability to access connections. So a lot of them have turned to farmers markets where, you know, it's fairly easy to get in. And they produce a lot of these vegetables for their customers all across the state.
One of those farmers is Bentley Vang, who leases land in Fresno County and is a regular vendor at the Berkeley farmer's market. Like many Hmong farmers he fled Laos and the aftermath of the Vietnam War. But since arriving in the US he's been farming, and he now grows a huge number of crops on around eight acres.
Jennifer travels often to the Central Valley to work with local regulating agencies to provide more culturally accessible training for Hmong farmers.
So what's your current work and what are you hoping to get done?
I'm just initiating a new project to look at the impact of the drought on Hmong farmers. So what we're going to do is interview about 150 farmers just to get a sense of what strategies are they using to cope with the drought and the extent to which they're able to access the government support programs. Another project we're looking at, too, is food safety. There already have been some implications where the buyers are requiring the Hmong to have food safety certification, and that's very costly. So we are already seeing evidence that some of the Hmong farmers are losing market.
Wow. Oh, that's delicious.
So we developed a very straightforward training program for a number of Hmong farmers in the Fresno area and it's a very hands-on applied food safety class. I mean, it's just washing your hands, making sure that you have a hand washing station next to the bathroom and you have paper towels. And one of the farmers, because he went through the food safety training, now he's able to sell to Fresno Unified School
District. And so it was really exciting to see the benefits of those classes on some of the farmers instituting a lot of the practices. And we would like to see more farmers being able to access markets like this.
Meanwhile, the stands at Bay Area farmer's markets do brisk business as new and repeat customers like Jennifer and me pick up tender cooking greens, squashes, and yes, the best eggplant.
I love these little eggplant.

Key:
1 at almost every market in the state most times of the year
2 a three-hour drive 
3 in the 1980's or so
4 limited English, limited ability to access connexions
5 eight acres
6 the impact of the drought
7 food safety 
8 washing their hands, using paper towels

Listening test: Passport for sale

Listen to a short report on the famous St. Kitts and Nevis passport and complete the gaps in the sentences below with UP TO THREE words. 0 is an example.

source: Deep English

0 Example:
According to the United Nations, there are 19.5 million refugees around the world.

1 In the US foreigners can get a permanent visa by investing $_________________ in a US business.

2 In the late 90’s, the economy of St. Kitts and Nevis was _________________.

3 Apart from the collapse of the sugar industry, _________________ hit the islands in 1998 and 1999.

4 Lawrence’s plan meant foreign companies giving donations or investing a lot of money in _____________ .

5 Lawrence calmed down the citizens of St. Kitts and Nevis by saying that the new citizens would not be given the _________________.

6 Citizens of St. Kitts and Nevis can travel to over 100 countries ________________.

7 The problem with St. Kitts and Nevis passports started when ________________ started using them.

8 Lawrence has ________________ about his plan because it brought a lot of money to St. Kitts and Nevis.

According to the United Nations, there are 19.5 million refugees around the world. Most of them are poor and in need of support. What most people don’t hear about are the ultra-rich who can easily buy their way into a new life abroad. In the US, for example, foreigners who invest $500,000 in a US business can get a permanent residency visa.
The country of St. Kitts and Nevis has taken it one step further. This island country has beautiful oceans, jungles, and mountains, but it doesn’t have much else. In the late 90’s, the economy of St. Kitts and Nevis was in trouble. Wendell Lawrence found a solution.
Lawrence worked for the finance ministry at a time when the government was in massive debt. The sugar industry, which employed a quarter of the country’s citizens, had collapsed. To make matters worse, a massive hurricane hit the islands in 1998, and in 1999 two more hit. Major rebuilding was necessary, but they had no money.
Lawrence found a foreign company that wanted to partner with St. Kitts and Nevis to sell passports. The plan was simple. For a $250,000 donation or a $400,000 investment in real estate, anyone could get a passport and citizenship.
Not everyone was on board. For many people citizenship is sacred. Some people said that foreigners might take over the country. Lawrence told them not to worry. They would be citizens, but they wouldn’t have the right to vote.
The plan was given the green light. While some customers were looking for a place to hide their money from their home countries, others were looking for the visa-free travel that a St. Kitts and Nevis passport would give. Being a member of the British Commonwealth, citizens of St. Kitts and Nevis have access to over 100 countries without a visa.
The product was a big hit. At its height, they were selling 2,000 passports a year. The plan eventually came to a head when international criminals started using St. Kitts and Nevis passports. Suddenly, countries started to scrutinize this once respected passport. Canada even said that non-native St Kitts and Nevis passport holders would not be allowed in without a visa. The market for these passports like the previous market for sugar collapsed.
Lawrence says he has no regrets. The plan raised a lot of money and improved the economy of the country. Other people disagree. One local woman said, “It’s wrong. There are ways to get money. Do it some other way. Don’t sell us out.”
St. Kitts and Nevis may have been one of the first, but they are not the last. Malta now sells citizenship, but EU passports don’t come cheap. The current price is 1.5 million Euros.

Key:
1 500,000
2 in trouble
3 (some/three massive) hurricanes
4 real estate
5 right to vote
6 without a visa
7 international criminals
8 no regrets

Listening test: Money and social behaviour

Listen to an NPR interview with researcher Emily Bianchi, who has participated in a study on the way money affects social behaviour, and complete the blanks in the sentences below with UP TO THREE words. 0 is an example.

source: NPR

0 Example:
Researchers Bianchi and Vohs analysed the data for nearly 30,000 respondents.

1 The aim of the study is to find out how what we earn affects how we _____________________ .

2 Wealthier people tend to spend _____________________ and socialise less with other people.

3 Wealthier people spend more time with friends but less with _____________________ .

4 People who earn _____________________ socialise less than those who earn $50,000.

5 If you have greater levels of education, you’re more likely to leave your  _____________________ .

6 Even if you lived in the same town in which you grew up, _____________________ dictates the time you spend socializing with your family.

7 Spending less time with family may have a negative effect on a person’s _____________________ well-being.

8 Money may allow people the luxury of choosing relationships more _____________________  .

Does access to money predict social behavior? That’s the question posed by researchers Emily Bianchi and Kathleen Vohs in a new study. They dug into data for nearly 30,000 respondents of the General Social Survey - that’s a long-running sociological survey of American attitude and behavior - to find out how what we earn affects how we spend our time. Emily Bianchi is an assistant professor at the Goizueta Business School at Emory University in Atlanta. Thank you for joining us.
Thank you for having me.
So what is the answer? How does income affect how people spend their time?
Well, what we found is that people who live in wealthier households tend to spend more time alone. And they tend to spend less time socializing with other people.
Any other people or particular other people?
Well, what we found was that people who are in households with higher income tend to spend less time with family, less time with neighbors. But they do spend more time with friends.
Now, what we’re talking about here when we say high-earning people. Give us a dollar.
You know, generally, we’re looking at – the median income was about $58,000. And we’re looking at this in a continuous sense. And we find it - it’s pretty linear. So if you’re in - your household earned $70,000, you’re going to see that people socialize less, on average, than households that are in $50,000.
Well, now, one tempting explanation might be that if you have a lot of money, you can go anywhere you want. If you don’t have a lot of money, you’re in - you’re stuck with the people or you’re happy to be stuck, perhaps, with the people that are right around you.
Yeah. And that was certainly something we wondered about. You know, there is evidence that when people have greater levels of education, they’re more likely to leave their communities of origin. They’re more likely to move away from their childhood homes. And so what we did is we looked at how these effects played out among people who didn’t leave their childhood homes or their childhood communities - and also looked at people who did. And what we found is that it actually didn’t matter. So
even if you lived in the same town in which you grew up, income still predicted the amount of time you would spend socializing with your family.
So why is this important? What do you think this tells us about social class and social connections and the importance of income for class and connection?
Well, I’m not entirely sure yet. I mean, there’s a lot of potential implications here. On the one hand, you know, it’s somewhat troubling because we know that social connections tend to promote mental and physical health. So to the extent that wealthier people are spending less time attending to those relationships, this could have negative implications for physical and mental well-being. On the other hand, you know, we still don’t know a lot about why wealthier people are spending less time with others. And it
could be that money enables wealthy people to limit contact with relatives with whom they have strained or difficult relationships. So it may be somewhat of a luxury to be able to pick which relationships you choose to attend to and focus on the ones that are most supportive and satisfying.
Emily Bianchi is an assistant professor of management at Emory University in Atlanta. Thank you very much for talking to us.
Thank you for having me.

KEY:
1 spend our time
2 more time alone
3 family and neighbours
4 $70,000
5 community of origin/childhood home
6 income
7 physical and mental
8 supportive and satisfying
 

Utility vs Homeowners Over Solar Power

In Hawaii, where 12 percent of the homes have solar panels, handling the surplus power is putting pressure on the state’s biggest utility, which is fighting to reduce what it pays for the energy.

Self-study activity:
Watch the video and answer the questions below.



1 How long has Joyce been waiting to have solar panels installed?
2 How much does Joyce’s neighbour pay for their electricity bill?
3 What kind of power does the American public want?
4 What problem does the traditional utility circuit power have?
5 How long did Michael John take to have the system installed and running in his home?
6 How much does he pay for electricity in June and July?
7 How much does the maintenance of the power system cost?
8 When will Joyce have her panels finally installed?

I have been waiting three years, three years, to have solar panels installed. My neighbour across has solar panels. The ones that already have solar panels, they just pay $18 a month. I pay 395, almost $400. They say that the grid is full and I have just to wait and so… I’m still waiting.
Hawaiians have some of the highest electric bills in the country, and so they have rushed to install photovoltaic or PV systems on their rooftops, so they can make their own power.
We’re not just talking about saving the planet here. We’re talking about saving the paying from being held hostage by the utility companies. The American public wants solar energy. I don’t care whether they’re in Oklahoma, New York, California or Hawaii. Whatever happens in Hawaii is gonna happen in the main land. It’s just a matter of waiting.
Nationwide, Hawaii is on the forefront of solar adoption, and other states are watching to see how HE Co, Hawaii’s main utility, reimagines its business.
We don’t have the luxury to look at another state and say how was it done there and instead we sort of have to figure out on our own. The traditional utility circuit power starts off at Hilla substation and flows power one way to each home that we serve.
And the challenges the grid was designed to handle the power flowing in one direction but now it’s going back and forth between our customers’ rooftops back into the rest of the grid.
The combined output of all of our rooftop solar systems up the circuit back into our substation feeding into the grid can really potentially bring the entire island’s system out.
Infrastructure upgrades to avoid that worst-case scenario are expensive and HE Co has moved slowly, some critics say too slowly.
What should have been a ninety-day project turned into five, four months to yet completely install, set up and running. And now I make more electricity than I use, usually June and July it’s free, so that was great.
But, of course, if you play the model business out to the end whereby you get full credit for every bit of electricity that you produce, then the utility company doesn’t make any money and they go out of business. And, of course, we don’t have the grid that we can have the solar energy.
Providing basic electric service, power at night, back-up power, all of that PV customers are not paying for fully and instead of being paid for by customers of ours who don’t have PV systems, and right now it’s to the tune of over $50 million.
Hawaiian Electrics wants to cut the rate it pays customers for their solar energy in half so that the solar customers will be paying their fair share of overall service costs.
Now I’m a total abdicate for this because what it does to us it allows the business model play out to the end. The utility companies, their job becomes store the energy, manage it, move it where is need it, let the public create generation facilities by benefitting everybody.
So it’s an extremely interesting time, you know, it creates a lot of burden for us, a lot of pressure. We have some customers who have been waiting for quite some time. We committed to caring 90% of them by April of this year.
I’ve waited, I’ve waited so long but when you say it’s April, and so I’m all excited. I’ll save lots of money, am I correct?

Key:
1 three years
2 $18
3 solar energy
4 the grid was designed to handle the power flowing in one direction
5 five, four months
6 nothing
7 $50m
8 in April

Talking point: Cashless society

This week's talking point is cashless society. Before getting together with the members of your conversation group, go over the questions below so that ideas come to mind more easily the day you get together with your friends and you can work out vocabulary problems beforehand.

Think of things you’ve bought in the past week. Why did you buy them? How did you pay for them?
What does the expression ‘Money doesn’t grow on trees?’ mean?
When do people say it?
Do you and your family have a weekly budget?
Do you know the typical interest rate on your credit cards?
Do you try to put aside savings? If so, how often? If not, why not?
Do you feel that you know how to make investments?
Have you ever taken out a loan? If so, what for?
Who do/would you turn to for advice before making an investiment? 

We seem to be getting close to living in a ‘cashless society’, where all payments are made by putting a plastic card into a machine and entering our pin code, or by simply waving the card in front of the machine. What are the advantages and disadvantages of a ‘cashless society’ as opposed to the traditional ‘paper money’? You can talk about convenience, health (bacteria in notes), saving/spending, crime/dishonesty.

Do you agree with the statements below? Explain your reasons.
Which advice do you think is most relevant?
1 The reason people get into financial trouble is that they’re not taught how to manage personal finance. This needs to be introduced as a subject in schools.
2 Financial experts tend to oversell the need to save money. They forget that people need to enjoy life and that often means spending money.
3 There are too many financial experts saying too much about personal finance. This doesn’t help, it just creates confusion and people feel under pressure.
4 A lot of people are so obsessed with their personal wealth that they forget  about giving money to charities that can help people who are less fortunate.

Listening test: Social entrepreneurs

Listen to a radio report on social entrepreneurs and match extracts 1-6 with their corresponding heading. There are two headings you do not need to use.

A - In the public eye
B - Main priority
C - Money for the projects
D - Part of the education system
E - Receiving lots of awards
F - Some disadvantages too
G - Some examples
H - Who are social entrepreneurs

1
Social entrepreneurs – people who create startup companies that would help the environment, healthcare or agriculture – are on the rise. These entrepreneurs use innovation to tackle important economic and social problems. They can be for-profit or non-profit entities.

2
Funding for social entrepreneurs is increasing. This is coming from foundations, institutional investors and individuals. Kiplinger is a personal finance publication in Washington, D.C. It reported that the amount of assets in socially responsible investing – focused on companies doing good in the world – almost doubled,
from $3.74 trillion in 2012 to $6.57 trillion in 2014. Globally, interest in socially responsible investing is growing even faster. The 2014 Global Sustainable Investment Review said that between 2012 and 2014, global assets rose to $21.4 trillion from $13.3 trillion – an increase of 61 percent.

3
The Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship, in Geneva, Switzerland, is an example of a foundation that advances social entrepreneurs around the world. Each year, working with the World Economic Forum, the foundation searches the globe “for outstanding social innovators, with business models that are proven to drive social and environmental change,” said their website. Getting rich is not the primary aim of social entrepreneurs. Instead, their focus is on fulfilling their mission to improve society. “While profits are ideally generated, the main aim is not to maximize financial returns for shareholders, but to grow the social venture and reach more people in need,” said the Schwab Foundation website. Usually, social entrepreneurs reinvest their profits in the enterprise to expand it.

4
Kristin Groos Richmond is co-founder of Revolution Foods and one of the social entrepreneurs selected by the Schwab Foundation. Her company, in Oakland, California, is dedicated to providing fresh food, prepared daily, for families and schools, and is active in 11 states across the U.S. and Washington, DC. Richmond said social entrepreneurs are driven by their values. She gave the following advice to aspiring social entrepreneurs: “Align yourself with a team, a board and investors who believe in your mission.” Many social entrepreneurs create novel solutions to solve world problems. Bart Weetjens, a Belgian social entrepreneur, is an example. He kept rats as childhood pets, then realized they could be put to work detecting land mines. He founded the non-profit organization APOPO in 1997. APOPO has used specially trained rats on leashes to clear more than 13,200 unexploded bombs from minefields in Tanzania, Mozambique, Angola and Cambodia, according to the National Geographic. APOPO uses African giant-pouched rats, which are huge, cat-sized rats native to central Africa. They have “an extraordinary sense of smell,” said the National Geographic. The rats are lightweight enough to walk across the mines without setting them off. And their sensitive noses can sniff out explosives buried in the ground, even decades after a war has ended.

5
In addition, many business schools – both in the U.S. and other countries – now offer courses in social entrepreneurship. The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania is an example. It is ranked by US News & World Report as one of the nation’s top business schools. Wharton Online offers a five-week class on social entrepreneurship, four to six hours a week, through Coursera, a global e-learning platform. Graduates of the course receive a certificate and “learn how to develop, test and deploy high-impact solutions to society’s toughest problems,” according to Coursera’s website.

6
Social entrepreneurs have also won increased media attention. For example, Forbes showcased “30 Under 30” – the top social entrepreneurs younger than 30 from around the world. One honoree, Sejal Hathi, age 25, was a molecular biology student at Yale, who sought to help girls globally. She founded Girltank, a for-profit start-up, to identify and develop girls with potential to be high-impact leaders. The website refers to it as “the she lab for social entrepreneurship.” “Girltank creates a virtual tank for young women interested in social entrepreneurship to utilize the collective genius of the group to brainstorm ideas and solutions, crowdsourcing funding for their ventures, and receive peer-to-peer mentoring,” according to the website.

Key:
1H 2C 3B 4G 5D 6A

Extensive listening: Smart Loans

Trust: How do you earn it? Banks use credit scores to determine if you're trustworthy, but there are about 2.5 billion people around the world who don't have one to begin with — and who can't get a loan to start a business, buy a home or otherwise improve their lives.

Hear how TED Fellow Shivani Siroya is unlocking untapped purchasing power in the developing world with InVenture, a start-up that uses mobile data to create a financial identity. "With something as simple as a credit score," says Siroya, "we're giving people the power to build their own futures."

You can read the full transcript here.

Reading test: The man who lives without money

This week's reading test is a bit more difficult than usual. It is based on the article The man who lives without money. Try not to worry about the vocabulary and expressions you do not know and try to work out the answers by understanding the general meaning in the article.

Read this article on Mark Boyle, the man who lives without money, and choose the option A, B or C which best completes each sentence. 0 is an example.

The man who lives without money

Think you couldn’t live without money? Irishman Mark Boyle challenged this notion and here’s how he finds life with no financial income, bank balance, and no spending.
“If someone told me seven years ago, in my final year of a business and economics degree, that I’d now be living without money, I’d have probably choked on my microwaved ready meal.” According to Boyle, the plan back then was to ‘get a good job’, make as much money as possible, and buy the stuff that would show society he was successful.
Like most individuals raised in a consumer-driven society, he never second guessed those goals. For a while he had a fantastic job managing a big organic food company and even had a yacht in the harbor. If it hadn’t have been for the chance purchase of a video called Gandhi, he’d still be pursuing the same life. “I’d still be doing it today. Instead, for the last fifteen months, I haven’t spent or received a single penny. Zilch”.
The change in life path came one evening on the yacht while philosophizing with a friend over a glass of Merlot. “Whilst I had been significantly influenced by Mahatma’s quote “be the change you want to see in the world”, I had no idea what that change was up until then.”
The two friends began talking about all the major issues in the world – environmental destruction, resource wars, factory farms, sweatshop labor – and wondered which of the issues they could best devote their time to. Mark didn’t feel he could really make any difference, however “being two small drops in a highly polluted ocean”.
That evening, though, a revelation came through: “These issues weren’t as unrelated as I had previously thought – they had a common root cause. I believe the fact that we no longer see the direct repercussions our purchases have on the people, environment, and animals they affect is the factor that unites these problems.”
Boyle believes that the degrees of separation between the consumer and the consumed have increased so much that it now means most people are completely unaware of the levels of destruction and suffering embodied in the ‘stuff’ they buy.
It can be agreed that few people actually want to cause suffering to others; most just don’t have any idea that they directly are. The tool that has enabled this separation is money, especially in its globalized format.
“If we grew our own food, we wouldn’t waste a third of it today” is one of Mark’s examples as to why it’s important a reconnection with natural/source living is established. “If we made our own tables and chairs, we wouldn’t throw them out the moment we changed the interior décor. If we had to clean our own water, we probably wouldn’t shit in it”.
The above arguments all honestly assess the undervalue most objects now have. With convenience at our fingertips, most don’t consider where their trash product or unwanted items go.
Deciding to be the change, this then spurred Mark to fully dive into his new viewpoint and give up money, which he only planned on doing for a year. “I made a list of the basics I’d need to survive. I adore food, so it was at the top. There are four legs to the food-for-free table: foraging wild food, growing your own, bartering and using waste grub, of which there are far more”.
On his first day, he fed 150 people a three-course meal with waste and foraged food. For himself, however, he ate his own crops and waste only made up about 5% of his diet. “I cooked outside – rain or shine – on a rocket stove”.
The next concern was shelter. He found himself a caravan from Freecycle, parked it on an organic farm he volunteered with, and renovated it out to be off the electricity grid. I’d use wood I either coppiced or scavenged to heat my humble abode in a wood burner made from an old gas bottle, and I had a compost loo to make ‘humanure’ for my veggies”. Up front and to the point, Boyle clearly understood the necessity of using every available resource to be most sustainable.
“I bathed in a river, and for toothpaste I used washed up cuttlefish bone with wild fennel seeds, an oddity for a vegan. For loo I’d relieve the local newsagent of its papers (Once I wiped my arse with a story about myself); it wasn’t double quilted but it quickly became normal”. For transportation, Mark used his bike and trailer, using the 55 km commute to the city as an alternative solution for the gym. Beeswax candles served as his lighting.
Humorously inspiring to some, deluded and anti-capitalist to others, Mark had this to say about his radical lifestyle: “Many people label me as anti-capitalist. Whilst I do believe capitalism is fundamentally flawed, requiring infinite growth on a finite planet, I am not anti anything.” More than anything, Boyle claims to be pro-nature, pro-community, and pro-happiness. How often is that a city dweller’s life philosophy?
“And that’s the thing I don’t get – if all this consumerism and environmental destruction brought happiness, it would make some sense. But all the key indicators of unhappiness – depression, crime, mental illness, obesity, suicide and so on are on the increase.” More money, it seems, does not equate to more happiness.
Another positive effect of Mark’s unique lifestyle is the joy he has created for himself. “Ironically, I have found this year to be the happiest of my life. I’ve more friends in my community than ever, I haven’t been ill since I began, and I’ve never been fitter. I’ve found that friendship, not money, is real security. That most western poverty is spiritual, and that independence is really interdependent.”
Mark’s example certainly stands as inspiration for those seeking freedom from the fast-paced modern age; most alternative media sources would agree that the more one reconnects to nature, the better their mental, physical, and spiritual health is. However, could everyone live like this? According to Mark, no.
“It would be a catastrophe, we are too addicted to both it and cheap energy, and have managed to build an entire global infrastructure around the abundance of both.”
The prospect of gradually transitioning to re-localized, small communities is a possibility, though. With greener energy sources and healthier communities being implemented at a growing rate, natural living is already a reality, but may be made much more mainstream in the future to come.
“For over 90 percent of our time on the planet, a period when we lived much more ecologically, we lived without money. Now we are the only species to use it, probably because we are the species most out of touch with nature.”
Asked what was missing from his old world of lucre and business, Mark replied “Stress. Traffic-jams. Bank statements. Utility bills. Oh yeah, and the odd pint of organic ale with my mates down at the local”.
It just goes to show, if you are passionate about anything, you can be that change you’d like to see in the world.

0 Example:
Seven years ago Mark
A had already finished his degree course.
B was a conventional person.
C was already planning to live without money.

1 Mark and his friend
A had a serious conversation one day.
B got drunk one evening.
C worked in the same company.

2 Mark realised
A most of us are ignorant of the repercussions of our actions.
B plenty of people want to cause as much damage to others as possible.
C the gap between consumers and the consumed is closing.

3 According to Mark
A it is too easy for us to get everything.
B our society has started a reconnection with the natural world.
C we should make our own furniture.

4 Mark
A grows his own food.
B mainly eats food people throw away.
C regularly eats with some other people.

5 Mark
A gets his electricity from the farm where he works.
B is sometimes given a lift.
C washes in the river after going to the toilet.

6 In Mark’s opinion capitalism
A has brought more happiness in general.
B requires using resources non-stop.
C is being widely rejected all over the world.

7 Mark’s lifestyle
A can easily be imitated by most people.
B has been very rewarding for him.
C has made him dependent on other people.

8 Mark
A intends to spend 90% of his time living without money.
B still drinks pints with his friends at the local pub.
C thinks many more people will reconnect with nature in the future.

KEY:
1A 2A 3A 4A 5B 6B 7B 8C

Extensive listening: How Aribnb designs for trust

In his TED Talk How Aribnb designs for trust, Joe Gebbia, the co-founder of the company, talks about how he built Airbnb on the belief that people can trust each other enough to stay in one another's homes. How did he overcome the stranger-danger bias? Through good design.

Now, 123 million hosted nights later, Gebbia sets out his dream for a culture of sharing in which design helps foster community and connection instead of isolation and separation.

You can read the transcript for his talk here.

Extensive listening: Economic Growth Has Stalled, Let's Fix It

Economic growth is the defining challenge of our time; without it, political and social instability rises, human progress stagnates and societies grow dimmer.

In this TED talk delivered in Geneva in December 2015, economist Dambisa Moyo says dogmatic capitalism isn't creating the growth we need. As she shows, in both state-sponsored and market-driven models, capitalism is failing to solve social ills, fostering corruption and creating income inequality.

Moyo surveys the current economic landscape and suggests that we have to start thinking about capitalism as a spectrum so we can blend the best of different models together to foster growth.

You can read the transcript here.

Reading test: Oxfam says wealth of richest 1% equal to other 99%

In this week's reading test we are going to practise the insert-a-sentence type of task. Read the BBC article Oxfam says wealth of richest 1% equal to other 99% below and choose the sentences and phrases A-K that best complete the gaps. There are two sentences you do not need to use. 0 is an example.

Oxfam says wealth of richest 1% equal to other 99%

The richest 1% now has as much wealth (0) as the rest of the world combined, according to Oxfam. It uses data from Credit Suisse from October for the report, which urges leaders meeting in Davos this week to take action on inequality. Oxfam also calculated that the richest 62 people in the world had as much wealth as the poorest half of the global population. It criticised the work of lobbyists and (1) … .

Oxfam predicted that the 1% would overtake the rest of the world this time last year. It takes cash and assets worth $68,800 (£48,300) to get into the top 10%, and $760,000 (£533,000) to be in the 1%. That means that if you own an average house in London (2) … , you are probably in the 1%.

The figures carry various caveats, for example, information about the wealth of the super-rich is hard to come by, which Credit Suisse says means its estimates of the proportion of wealth held by the 10% and the 1% is "likely to err on the low side". As a global report, the figures also necessarily include some estimates of levels of wealth in countries from which accurate (3) … .

Some free market think tanks questioned the credibility of the figures. The Institute of Economic Affairs' director general Mark Littlewood said the statistics were "bogus". "The methodology of adding up assets (4) … and then making a global 'net wealth' distribution implies that many of the poorest in the world are those in advanced countries with high debts. Whilst we might have sympathy for the Harvard law graduate's plight, it is unclear that worrying about her should be the focus of a development organisation," he said.

The Adam Smith Institute's head of research Ben Southwood also said the data was "misleading". "More meaningful measures show greater equality. Those in the middle and bottom of the world income distribution have all got pay rises of around 40% between 1988-2008. Global inequality of (5) … are narrowing too—showing better nutrition and better healthcare where it matters most. "What we should care about is the welfare of the poor, not the wealth of the rich," he added.

Oxfam said that the 62 richest people having as much wealth as the poorest 50% of the population is a remarkable concentration of wealth, given that it would have taken 388 individuals to have the same wealth as the bottom 50% in 2010. "Instead of an economy that works for the prosperity of all, for future generations, and for the planet, (6) … one for the 1%," Oxfam's report says.

The trend over the period that Credit Suisse has been carrying out this research has been that the proportion of wealth held by the top 1% fell gradually from 2000 to 2009 and(7) … . In fact, it is only in the 2015 figures that the proportion held by the top 1% overtakes the share taken by them in the first report in 2000.

Oxfam calls on governments to take action to reverse this trend. It wants workers paid a living wage and the gap with executive rewards to be narrowed. It calls for an end to the gender pay gap, compensation for unpaid care and the promotion of equal land and inheritance rights for women. And it wants governments to take action on lobbying, reducing the price of medicines, (8) … rather than consumption and using progressive public spending to tackle inequality.

A - and subtracting debts
B - as the rest of the world combined 0 Example
C - has risen every year since then
D - it is hard to be believed
E - life expectancy and height
F - statistics are not available
G - taxing wealth
H - the amount of money kept in tax havens
I - to make matters worse
J - we have instead created
K - without a mortgage

 

Photo: BBC and Getty

KEY: 
1H 2K 3F 4A 5E 6J 7C 8G