Teenage girl hugging her parents at high school graduation

Family is one of the most important things to me, just like how it is for most people. When I enter my home, it radiates with memories made from emotional connections of laughter, love, and sometimes sadness or anger. 25 years ago, my parents came to America from Afghanistan with the main objective of providing my sisters and I with a great future. Of course, moving to a new country meant running on a tight budget. The methods we grew up on were sometimes dirt cheap, but they were and still are totally sustainable! Here are five ways my parents, and parents around the world, stay on a budget while also being sustainable!

1. Hand-me-downs

One thing I can vouch for as the middle child in my family is that hand-me-down clothes were a BIG thing in my house. My mom would always keep our extra clothes for the smaller child, and she still has extra baby clothes for when she has grandchildren! Hand-me-downs weren’t always the best; no kid goes out of their way to beg for some old clothes. However, hand-me-downs were doing good for me by saving the planet I live on! Now I recognize how sustainable that really was. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), extending the life of clothing by reuse significantly cuts down the environmental impact associated with producing new clothing, from raw materials to manufacturing emissions. Hand-me-downs kept clothing out of landfills, reduced our family’s demand for fast fashion, and quietly taught us that new doesn’t always mean better.

2. Reusing containers

Another major sustainable habit in our household was reusing containers. Every immigrant kid knows that the real Tupperware in the house is a stack of old restaurant takeout containers, yogurt tubs, butter jars, and metal cookie tins that absolutely never contain what their labels suggest. Growing up, I would open a yogurt container expecting yogurt and instead find leftover rice. A cookie tin was disappointing to younger me because I knew there was nothing in it except a sewing kit. To me, it was funny and sometimes annoying, but environmentally, it was genius. Research from the University of Michigan (U-M)  found that reusable takeout food containers significantly reduce plastic waste, greenhouse-gas emissions, and energy use compared to single-use containers—often breaking even in environmental impact after only 4–13 uses. The EPA also states that reuse conserves energy and resources more effectively than recycling alone. My parents didn’t know these statistics. They simply understood that throwing away something sturdy and reusable didn’t make sense. Their instinctual habit of keeping and repurposing containers meant our home produced far less waste than many modern households today.

3. Energy and Water saving

Energy and water conservation were also deeply ingrained in my upbringing. In my house, leaving a light on in an empty room was practically a crime. My mom had this uncanny ability to detect a dripping faucet anywhere in the house, and my dad lectured us constantly about not wasting electricity. At the time, I thought they were being strict because bills were expensive. And while that was true, they were also creating an environmentally conscious household without calling it that. According to research by the Center for Water-Energy Efficiency at UC Davis, reducing household water use lowers the amount of energy required to pump, heat, and treat that water. This means fewer emissions and less strain on resources. Meanwhile, even simple steps like switching off lights or reducing idle electricity use make a meaningful difference. Homes that use efficient lighting and avoid unnecessary electricity consumption consume far less energy overall, which helps cut greenhouse-gas emissions tied to power generation. What felt like strict household discipline when I was a kid is now something I recognize as eco-conscious living—small but powerful ways to respect both the resources and the planet.

4. Staying at home while saving the planet!

A part of our sustainability also came from our culture’s natural tendency toward plant-centered meals. In many South Asian households, vegetarian dishes are usually served for religious beliefs followed under Hinduism. Behind that, eating plant based can help reduce the carbon footprint that feeds into climate change! Research from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health shows that plant-based diets produce far fewer greenhouse-gas emissions and require less land and water than meat-heavy diets. Campaigns like Meatless Monday also highlight how plant-centered meals reduce carbon footprints and conserve resources. What I once thought of as just cultural food was actually a sustainable pattern long before climate-friendly eating became mainstream, and my parents were just preserving culture and stretching meals in the most resourceful way. That same mindset showed up in another classic immigrant-parent habit: the famous “I can make this at home” mindset. Whenever we went out to eat, which wasn’t often, my mom would taste something once and immediately decide she could recreate it for a fraction of the cost. She mastered everything in our own kitchen, a habit that unintentionally reduced packaging waste, plastic containers, and the transportation emissions associated with frequent takeout. The EPA states that home cooking significantly reduces single-use packaging waste and helps decrease food waste created by oversized restaurant portions. As a kid, I sometimes wished we went out for more, but now I understand the quiet environmental kindness hidden in those simple dinners 

5. Owning livestock

Yes, you read that right! My older sister took the responsibility of wanting to own chickens, and my parents followed by getting a chicken shed and putting it in our backyard. My parents owned plenty of farm animals back home. In fact, at one point, my dad’s family owned over 200 chickens! These ladies love to be loud and even escape their cages, but they have been super helpful with helping our planet! Store-bought eggs come with packaging, transportation emissions, and the environmental toll of industrial farming. Backyard hens, on the other hand, provide fresh food with nearly no carbon footprint, especially when you consider reduced packaging, transport, and large-scale industrial agriculture impacts. Additionally, these chickens have some magic in them, specifically in their poop! Chicken manure can act as a natural fertilizer because of its richnessness in nitrogen and phosphorus—key nutrients in having a healthy garden—so you are now saving more on eggs and fertilizer when investing in some chickens!