I have received many different recommendations on how to best manage my money to ensure that I can live a happy and prosperous life. I’ve been told to keep my money in the banks to gain interest and to make sure I budget everything that I do so that I never get into a sticky situation. However, the best tip I have ever been given is to check multiple items to compare prices and quality. This is a tip that sounds so simple, but is invaluable, and can make for an incredibly strong boon when trying to save as much money as possible.. It is a tactic that is great for preserving both the quality of goods and making sure that you can hold a greater amount of cash for later. One of the single best pieces of financial advice I have ever received was to be conscious of what I was buying. The process of checking prices in comparison to quality is a very simple but effective one. First, you need to identify what you are trying to find. This is an essential step in ensuring that we can make an educated decision about what we need to accomplish. We need to know what we are looking for so we don’t waste time on irrelevant things. We next have to find all of the products that fit our needs. This is an early elimination process that allows us to limit our considerations. We don’t want to be looking at a good deal that can’t work out for us. Then we need to begin filing towards the best price and the best quality. This is a mostly personal process, as it’s up to the individual to determine how much they are willing to spend on something. For me, I will look for the best price I can, and then begin scaling up to get to a price that I deem to be reasonable in terms of what is needed to get the best product for me. That said you can do this process in any other way that best suits you. A good example of this can be seen through the lens of actually attempting to purchase a product. For this example, we will be looking into buying a pair of earbuds for our device. First, we need to consider the limitations that our devices have. Do they have an AUX port, or do we need a pair of Bluetooth earbuds? Where will we be using these headphones? These are good examples of what kind of questions we might need to ask to be able to begin determining what we need. Then we can get to the actual process of finding objects that meet our needs. There are a lot of different earbuds out there, and we want to sort out anything we can’t initially use. Once we have gotten past that point we can begin to look into our prices and quality. For example, I would look for the cheapest pair I can find, and then begin identifying if it has a good enough quality for what I want. This ensures that I save money and then have solid earbuds to listen to my favorite tunes. That said, there is one final skill that needs to be obtained to be able to use this tactic optimally. To be able to perform the skill regularly is essential and for this skill, it’s debatably even more important for this kind of money-saving tactic. This kind of strategy isn’t getting hundreds of dollars per week, it's something that subtlety builds up a small amount of cash over time. To get the most out of this we need to do it regularly and often to make sure that we can save as much money as possible. Its compactness and applicability to many different sources make it an excellent thing to do often. The more that this skill is practiced the more money is saved, and the more successful the process becomes. We need to keep on trying to make sure that our best practices continue to be successful. Sometimes the best financial tips are the simplest. Taking some time to process everything that you see can really help save you some good money. I plan to use this regularly as I go into college. There is lots of more subtle budgeting in college living, and making sure that I make sure to practice good tactics like this one. I need to hunt for the best deals I can to make my college ride the best I can. The extra money will refine my processes of making sure that I can make college a clean shot to learn more about even more excellent ways to refine the process. Not worrying about money will make my college path stronger and my process as a learner even better.

Finances are a very important thing to be conscious of as a student. Money management when you're a student can have impacts that affect your entire life. I do many things to attempt to manage my spending and use of money. I try to avoid making heat-of-the-moment purchases, and I try my best to avoid buying things that I don’t need. Putting money in a savings account is also a way that I am able to maintain control of my money. Even though I am still in high school, using these techniques, I ensure that my lifestyle is affordable. But one might question, why is this relevant? Well, college has increased in price over the years. Tuitions have been rising steadily over time, and they show no pace of slowing down. There is also rampant inflation that has been occurring around the world as of late. For the vast majority of people, spending money blindly is becoming a thing of the past. This is even more important for students, who need to ensure that they can continue to afford housing, books, and transportation while paying for college, or worse, having to pay off student loans. Because of this, there are many practices needed to ensure that I can stay frugal as a student. One of the biggest tricks I’ve learned is to try and avoid making luxury purchases in the heat of the moment. This gives me a chance to reconsider purchases that might be regrettable later. It also can encourage me to attempt to look for better options and look from more angles at how to get the best value out of a purchase. This tip can feel very generic but can be a lifesaver to ensure that I can make the best out of a given purchase. Sometimes the best tips to save money are the most simple, for example, just making sure I compare prices is a reliable way to ensure that I can preserve my wealth. The financial trick that I find most useful to save money is to look at similar products and compare them. It’s essential to pair this with making sure that the products I am comparing are similar in their quality. Sometimes it’s far better to buy a good product than a cheap one. I also want to consider other things. Buying a larger size of a product I will use often can be a good investment to save money, and still, get things I need. The best way to save money is to use it wisely and be aware of my purchases. Ensuring that I maintain practices such as being wary of luxury purposes, and checking prices of similar products to maximize value are good ways to sustain my money, but it won’t always be enough. Though I don’t currently have the resources, I intend to use later earnings to create investments. This will allow my money to not sit and decrease in value, but potentially grow in value over a period of time. For now, though, I will put my money into getting a higher education. This will allow me to build skills that I can use to make wealth for myself and others.

Title: My Room My room is a storm, pieces of my past blown around on the winds of time to find their final resting place. My room is a place of shelter, one where I can feel the warmth of the well-loved sheets, and listen to the echoes of my mind. My room is a place of sleep. It facilitates shadows as bold as a dream, music like a loved one's lullaby, and the stillness of a breezeless field My room is a place of solitude, built like a scentless vault, frigid and lined to keep intruders out. My room is a place of confinement, my scents, anxieties, fears, and despairs build like a storm only being confined by a bed frame as old as me. My room is a place of pity, simple water and loneliness surrounding everything in a layer of aching bones and itched skin. My room is an ore mine, full of values just below the surface and walls that bare more memories than a long expired computer drive. My room is a forgotten grove, broken and disordered with the sun striking it like a stray arrow, yet with water that reminds the brain of life, and provides sanctuary and home for all those who find a need for it. My room is mine. I make the beauties of the strict floor, the history of the loved toys and projects, and the hope that can be found like sand in every corner. My room is me.

Community is a very important aspect of our lives and building it is invaluable to all of us. By accomplishing this, we can support others, and trust that they will support us in turn. It makes us able to create more social lives that not only benefit us but also help others. I have contributed to building a more positive and affirming community both in and outside of my school. I find these kinds of things to be very rewarding to me as it allows me to make the world a stronger place. I have helped improve and benefit my community in many different ways both as part of my school and as an individual. An example of this is the way I have helped my community by assisting in managing my school's Dungeons & Dragons club. I directed the club by organizing our game masters for their sessions and running the discord server used for communicating amongst the group. This was a good experience in management and ensuring that people would still enjoy their time in a new hobby. This club benefited a diverse group of people by providing them with a safe place to express themselves and build a stronger community. It was an excellent way to help better my community. However, this isn’t the only way that I was able to make my school a better place. I have helped at fundraisers for my school’s gender spectrum alliance, which has also used these funds to assist other LGBTQ+ groups in the greater community of Albuquerque. I helped advertise the fundraiser to the public and participated at the fundraising booth. This fundraiser also gave many of our peers a sweet treat around the valentine’s season, which raises the spirit of community. I enjoyed doing this to aid the greater Albuquerque community and to help make my school community a better place for all. The spirit is an undeniably important part of a person’s self, and feeding that spirit can be as important as feeding the body. One of the tasks I have aided in that brings me the most joy has been the time I dedicated to assisting at Roadrunner Food Bank. I assisted by sorting out food for processing and distribution. I have learned of the great importance that food banks and places like them have on assisting the needy in New Mexico by making sure that food isn’t wasted. Food banks like Roadrunner need volunteers to be able to thrive and provide for the community. Being able to serve the community independently of my school is invaluable, as it allows me to express my desire to help others independently. This is one of the things I feel the proudest of as it makes the whole of New Mexico better. Continuing to improve the community that I live in is something I seek to do in my life. In going to college, I want to try to use the education that I get to improve the world I live in. I want to discover how organizations can improve communities and provide more benefits to the world. I can use newly found knowledge of the world to find ways to build communities where people can feel safe, happy, and confident in themselves and others.