Note: The following is a transcript. It hasn't been edited for spelling and/or accuracy. Please reach out to us via email if you'd like a more accurate copy. Thanks for reading!
SPEAKERS
Announcer, Jason Fuchs, Nicole de Venoge
Announcer 00:02
Welcome to dad cents a podcast for folks looking to grow their financial future. This podcast is hosted by Jason Fuchs, a dad, a husband and managing director of sage path financial advisors. Jason's goal is to help you grow your financial future, the right way. Now, your host Jason Fuchs.
Jason Fuchs 00:25
Greetings everyone if you're new here, I'm Jason Fuchs married Amber's father to a two and a half year old girl jewel. I'm also the managing director of sage path financial advisors. And at Sage path. We're here to help you grow your financial future, the right way. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for being here. Joining me is environmental superhero. Nicole. Venusian, I butchered that, how do you say it Nicole delvin out Governor's. Okay. Welcome to the show. Nicole.
Nicole de Venoge 00:55
Thank you so much for having me.
Jason Fuchs 00:57
It's our pleasure. We're excited to have you here. We're gonna introduce Nicole later. But hey, Nicole, one of our topics and today's episode covers whether it's possible to make money while helping this lovely planet of ours.
Nicole de Venoge 01:11
What do you think? 100% 100% I
Jason Fuchs 01:14
thought you'd be on board with that. I received a question from one of our dozens of listeners asking if it's possible to make money while helping the earth and we're gonna get to the bottom of that later in the show. Ladies and gentlemen, keep the emails coming. If you have questions, concerns, comments, whatever. I love to hear about them. I've been enjoying the emails I've received so far. send those emails to Jay Fuchs at Sage path FA comm You can also reach me by phone at 904-366-9388. All of that info can be found in the description of the podcast. I like to take a moment now introduce our guests global environmental educator, Nicole and Nicole recently returned to the First Coast community here in Jacksonville, where she raised her family. Now Nicole spent three years living surfing stand up paddling as many rivers and seas of Europe as possible. So cool, Nicole, I'm so excited to talk about that. And in addition to her adventures abroad, Nicole spent almost 20 years working as an educator in devall County. Nicole is an active member in Surfrider Sisters of the sea and beaches go green. She founded coast clubs in local schools. Nicole has supported worked alongside numerous local causes and environmental groups including sea turtle patrol which my wife amber is also on Marsh fest Right Whale Fest, which amber has helped with as well. Hands across the sand with Oceana river keeper yoga for change, youth science nice. The list goes on and on. Nicole has also been heavily involved in volunteering and coaching sports fight for diverse adults youth groups in the community, including wounded warriors, Special Olympics, silent surfers, beaches, Soccer League, MLS, Soccer League, sisters and survivors and epic surf league. Again, the list goes on and on Nicole, most recently, Nicole is thrilled to be back with First Coast Surfrider. And that's where we met. She looks forward to working with the chapter alongside other national local environmental groups, businesses, diverse community members. And the goal is to increase sustainability practices and protect this beautiful coast of ours. One of Nicole's favorite things to do is to share her global experience and environmental education knowledge with the youth and other members in our community. And that's what she's here to do today. later in the show, Nicole will share with us hurricane preparedness in a sustainable way. Nicole, thank you so much for being here.
Nicole de Venoge 03:53
Thank you so much for having me, Jason.
Jason Fuchs 03:55
Oh, it's my pleasure. We're excited. You stay pretty busy.
Nicole de Venoge 03:59
I do.
Jason Fuchs 04:01
Is there a secret to the saucer? How do you do Oh,
Nicole de Venoge 04:04
I have an amazing mom and a lot of siblings.
Jason Fuchs 04:07
So nice support system in place.
Nicole de Venoge 04:09
Lots of energetic family.
Jason Fuchs 04:11
Well, you're doing a great job. So keep it up. You're welcome. Welcome back to Jacksonville.
Nicole de Venoge 04:17
Thank you so much.
Jason Fuchs 04:18
So I'm wondering, what was it you were doing before you return? I mean, it sounds incredible. It sounds like you're living the ultimate early retirement life without actually being retired.
Nicole de Venoge 04:29
So I'm very, very blessed to have been able to go back and forth and do a lot of my schooling overseas. I've always had an emphasis in international studies. Yeah, I actually have some undergraduate work in that in political science international relations along with a French degree. Wow. So I did a lot of European government studies. I'm actually a dual citizen. Are you really young? Yes. And so I just have always had kind of one foot in the middle. Yeah. And I certainly love to experience a lot of different cultures I actually have family living on I think I'm up to five continents. Yes. Wow. That's a lot to keep up with
Jason Fuchs 05:08
we get around thank goodness for zoom and FaceTime Right, exactly. So what has been I guess top highlight of your travels abroad
Nicole de Venoge 05:18
this last time? Yeah, so I would have to say just mean Italy was glorious I was living in Tuscany Oh dude, I had all the toys with me. Okay, I also had my Subaru Okay, no, no No like you know, the advertisement going on here but it was pretty pretty awesome because I had you know, the tent the plugin cooler Oh wow. All the all the road passes on my car and then all the surfboards and I also had some inflatable sups with me nice so and the kayaks so I mean and for our listeners it's
Jason Fuchs 05:51
going for our listeners a sup as a stand up paddleboard, right, sorry
Nicole de Venoge 05:55
about that. No, it's
Jason Fuchs 05:56
okay. Yes,
Nicole de Venoge 05:56
I even had the dog. So did I did. The dog has cruised all over with me. He's He's stopped the war. Up the Adriatic, Mediterranean, Korean and the French Atlantic coast. Wow.
Jason Fuchs 06:10
Wow. So what memory Do you find yourself? Going back to Oh goodness, and we can we can cover all of your travels not just this resort.
Nicole de Venoge 06:20
So I mean, I have some personal ones which my family is a champagne family. So okay, I have some personal ones where I went back and just reconnected with some of my roots and, and we do something in France where we clean our family crypts we clean our graves. Oh, I went back and did that. So that was very, very special have lost some close family members who I wasn't able to visit their grave. So that was really important. So sorry, and actually was lovely. It's very, very, you know, nice thing to be connected again. And then I guess the second thing was, that was amazing to me was just going underneath the the Chateau along the lower. Oh, beautiful. So that was pretty ridiculous. I kept looking around to see if I was going to get in trouble. We were at Chanel. So which is one of the most beautiful chateaus that are out there and there's biking trails and hiking trails, and I'd done all of that, but I had never dropped my stand up paddleboard. So I have some pretty ridiculous pictures that look like they're photoshopped. You
Jason Fuchs 07:21
really there is. No Did anybody stop you
Nicole de Venoge 07:26
now? It was just ridiculous. That's incredible. Don't tell anyone.
Jason Fuchs 07:30
I mean, it's out there now. We only have one French listener. So you're going to get mad that sense hasn't gone International. Yeah.
Nicole de Venoge 07:40
It is a beautiful piece of country if you do get to get away from Paris. You know, it's it's nice to see different parts and I prefer the rural. So just the fields glorious. There's Coakley Cove the poppies everywhere, just tons and tons of beautiful history, rolling fields. Very, very kind people delicious cider. And then there's, you know, just a short distance, some really great surf. So all kinds of good stuff.
Jason Fuchs 08:04
Yes. Now tell me about the surf.
Nicole de Venoge 08:06
So, in France in particular, so the surf there, my preferred places are down towards the Spanish border. Okay, so like Santa Andalus, bereits, laka. No, I know where all those are. Those are not at all. They're in towards the Basque Country. Okay, which is really interesting. Again, just the history part of it. It's a specialized culture, they have their own language, which is researching. And then of course, most people there speak French and Spanish and potentially Bosque. Wow. So it's a very, very rich culture.
Jason Fuchs 08:40
Yeah. That's very neat. Very cool. So you are back. And you're back with the First Coast Surfrider. Right,
Nicole de Venoge 08:47
yes.
Jason Fuchs 08:48
So tell me about all that. What's going on there?
Nicole de Venoge 08:50
Sure. So I actually had been with them and the beginnings back in the early 2000s. The chapter began here. We have chapters all over the country, which started in 1984. out in Malibu, California, they are global. So there are Surfrider chapters all over the world, actually, there's constantly adding chapters. There's a few new ones in Eastern Europe and in Germany as of last several months, honestly. Now, when
Jason Fuchs 09:17
you traveled, were you able to connect?
Nicole de Venoge 09:20
So I actually was living when I was living in Italy, not so much. I kind of did my own thing, but I was at one of the best surf spots. Yeah, yeah. Oh, there's a spot and anti neon. Oh, and there's another one in lavonne say where there's a actually rip curl store there. And it's really only like, good other than Sardinia spots where it actually breaks. That makes sense. That makes sense. So regarding First Coast, what's what are you most excited about within the chapter or what's the next big thing that's
Jason Fuchs 09:51
happening?
Nicole de Venoge 09:51
So Well, let's just start with I'm ecstatic that this pandemic seems to be dissipating. We've really had our hands tied on the you know, just being safe, making sure we kept people safe. So we are still limiting our numbers. Currently we're at 50. If this were a normal year, we would normally have large events and social gatherings. So I'm looking forward to being able to do that, again, we have something called black tie and baggies, which is one of our special fundraisers, something I would really like to do is get what we call our blue water Task Force back up and running, it's very important to know what exactly it is that we're swimming in surfing in record, no kidding. You don't even have to get in the water to be affected by it. We're breathing it, it's on everything's it's in the air. So it is very important to know that the ecosystem that we're living in is healthy and safe.
Jason Fuchs 10:43
So touch on that you said you don't have to be in the water to be affected on key correct. get into that a little
Nicole de Venoge 10:48
bit lately. So for example, in the last couple years, we've had multiple sewage breaches on both both coasts of Florida, and particularly Fort Lauderdale, for example. And then I believe, was down in St. Simons Island, they had multiple algal blooms, so that algae makes it so it's extremely difficult to breathe. And if you're someone who suffers already from things like asthma, you are really going to have a challenging time it burns your eyes, your throat, similar to something like a red tide, but it can cause other neurological disorders. Other things that can happen just by breathing in water vapor that has you can get all kinds of different your nose and throat, things that you can get from just exposure to the water, you don't necessarily even have to immerse yourself in it. The hotter the water is, the more the bacterial load, the more concern we are.
Jason Fuchs 11:41
So it sounds like even though people are going to the beach and just kind of standing near the water to watch, take photos or whatever, they're not going in the water, but they can still be affected. So tell me maybe 123 initiatives that you and Surfrider are working on right now that are top priority, the most important.
Nicole de Venoge 12:01
So here locally, certainly I mentioned the word infrastructure and it really does start at home. So making some changes, or the products that you're using, being mindful about the amount of application of fertilizers and pesticides that you're putting on your lawn. You can do a great service to everyone including our local wildlife by adding a tree look to our native species. We have a local chapter here, they're all over the place. They're called your native plants. Ours is called a native plant society are called exia. Okay, and they will can give you recommendations if you're not sure what would grow in your area interesting. Also plant trees for you for free. I just I just sadly lost one of my trees. Sorry, the storms and I was honestly devastated. I had to take it down. I brought an arborist in and I ended up planting another live oak tree, okay, which I it's going to take a long time for it to go but just that one planting of an indigenous species really benefits so many different wildlife, animals that are suffering because of all of this development. And we just have had a great loss of our pollinators across the board globally. Absolutely. Something very, very simple you can do. I currently in my backyard have planted some native plant species which are really, really fun to grow and they require really no maintenance whatsoever. I've got some beauty berries, Simpson stoppers, you can plant yellow upon Holly, there are so many different native species that I even may who really does not have a green thumb. It is the easiest thing you can do. Yeah, I am not kidding. almost instantly upon planning in my backyard. I started seeing thing really, it was wild. So I've had painted buntings this year. Okay, I've had monarch butterfly caterpillar. Oh, have you? Oh, yeah. And in all the years I've owned my home I have never seen so much. That's been a while because you plan it. Absolutely. And they were so helpful at exia. So I wanted to give them a little shout out. They've also helped us with some of our local gardens, which have been really challenging the volunteering, we've been restricted. But we do have some local native gardens. We call them our ocean friendly gardens, okay. And those are just simple things that you can do both city venues, schools, businesses, as well as your home and it's to keep that stormwater out of our drains. University of Florida has done a ton of wonderful outreach programs if you're interested in getting involved with the B program. Okay, they all say we'll teach you how to do all those things. I love for you to put a put a hive into your yard. Also their bat Pro. So they'll teach us to put a hive
Jason Fuchs 14:37
in our yard
Nicole de Venoge 14:38
100% you can really everybody can do something. Yeah. If you think it's small, it's really not it's it's just these little things that we can do can't recommend enough. The native plant society. Those people are just fantastic.
Jason Fuchs 14:52
Yeah. And now that we're all coming out of hibernation, this is a great thing to get into. I mean, especially now that we're getting into summertime We're, I guess I'm trying to say meaningful activities and activities that you can do with your family at home.
Nicole de Venoge 15:05
I know that we just started a new club at Fletcher High School, we have clubs for high schools and universities all over the country. I love it. And we do have one right here at USF University of North Florida. Of course, we have one at the University of Florida as well, my where I went to for my undergrad, they all come and work alongside us, and they've done so throughout the pandemic. And that's been a great connection. Okay, so
Jason Fuchs 15:31
we talked about a few big things for First Coast. Is there anything else going on that we need to know about?
Nicole de Venoge 15:37
Yes, I am extremely excited about our ocean friendly restaurant program. 2.0. We just repoint Okay.
Jason Fuchs 15:45
All right.
Nicole de Venoge 15:46
We just relaunched it fantastic from headquarters in California. And I am ecstatic because it is zero cost to the restaurant. Of course, if they want to donate to the program, they're 100%. We would love that to help support what we do. But I would love for anybody who has a restaurant that would like to try to work towards using more sustainable practices in the restaurant to check it out, has a list of things that you can do to qualify as an ocean friendly restaurant, and then you get advertisement, you become part of our map on surfrider.org. And people come from all over and they want to support businesses that are mindful a regular use plastics, absolutely. People who are going out of their way to try to remove some of that trash from the environment. I think we're getting the Supergirl coming here to do the big rules pro contest. And in November we're getting a huge skateboarding contest. Yeah. That's gonna be nice. So we're excited for some of the fun stuff.
Jason Fuchs 16:50
Yeah, we
Nicole de Venoge 16:51
talked about a lot of the heavy stuff, but cert surfriders. Also based on getting out there and enjoying what we love so much. We're passionate about protecting what we love. But we also know that that comes from the fact that we absolutely are just feel so lucky to be back. Oh, yeah. Okay, yeah, we're
Jason Fuchs 17:08
doing it all for a reason. And June
Nicole de Venoge 17:10
19 is our international surfing day. And we are really reaching out across the board. And again, working along lines of environmental justice and inclusionary lineups, and yeah, getting more people out there. The more people that love the ocean, the more people that protect the ocean.
Jason Fuchs 17:24
Nicole, you're here to share with us hurricane preparedness in a sustainable way. Right? Yes. All right. Let's get into it now. So what are some of the things that we can do in advance before any kind of major event in a sustainable way? And you know, you and I live in Jacksonville, but I think this can apply to anybody with any major event
Nicole de Venoge 17:47
here in Florida, we've had to contend with wildfires when my daughter was small, really, absolutely very scary stuff where they were jumping over 95 Taro about 97. Wow. The other things are, of course, water events, such as hurricanes and floods. For for me personally, the things that have worked for me because it's always been something that really bothered me is anytime there's even mention of a hurricane, we just see the grocery stores emptied. We're also saying the amount of bottled water as if we don't have plumbing where we live, gone. So what I would love to encourage you to do is go to any sporting store in advance. Don't wait until the first storm gets announced. This is the time to prepare as before there's something Oh yeah, go get they have these giant collapsible and they are plastic. Yeah, they're they're really neat. But if you're somebody that is especially worried about space, for me, these have been amazing. You can fill them up with tap water, there's nothing wrong with your tap water. If you're afraid to drink that. You can, you know, filter it and then absolutely something very simple. That's
Jason Fuchs 18:57
the greatest part about as you're gonna save a ton of money doing it. And not only that, you're gonna save a ton of time because when the storms get announced, everybody rushes to the store. So not only are you spending money, ladies and gentlemen on something you probably don't need to spend money on. But you're waiting in line and you're dealing with crowds and frustration and everybody's pushing each other out of the way. It's probably not that bad, but you get my point. It saves you a little effort.
Nicole de Venoge 19:22
It what's great about those containers I mentioned is you can throw them in the car, take them on camp trips, don't go stop and buy prepare. You probably have a whole bunch of water bottles in your house already the full ones filled them up. There's just very little thing fill up your bathtub, you can use those for free. Yeah, they're easy, great thing that you can do that really really saves and then you're not fighting those crowds. Yeah, we
Jason Fuchs 19:44
fill up our bathtubs and then we actually feel we have big plastic jugs that we just save and we put them in the freezer. So as they're in the freezer, we'll take them out you know as the storms coming through that way if we need drinking water or whatever we have access to it.
Nicole de Venoge 19:59
If you have Rolling coolers, I happen to have a plethora I'm married to fishermen, you can fill those as well, okay, any kind of container that can be sterilized, I think you just, if you think about it, it's something very, very simple that you can do. The other thing that you can do in advance is, you know, if you can't find it in the store, you may have to get it online. But they do have these solar lanterns with a crank. And they also have the emergency radios and you do want one of the absolutely your cell phone in order to recharge, you can also have those external battery packs. Those are some things that you really want to have in advance if you're waiting until they announced that people are not used to this. And we now do have a lot of people that are not used to these storms. And they may not understand how that work, and they they'll be panicking, I expect they're going to be a lot of panic at the store.
Jason Fuchs 20:50
I remember when Matthew came through that was this was the year and we're in I moved from DC a big one. And the gas stations were packed with people, I think people were burning more gasoline, trying to fill up their tanks before the storm, then, if they had just waited until afterwards, it was insane. So
Nicole de Venoge 21:08
another way that you can avoid the grocery stores and save a little bit in your pocket is by preserving your food. A lot of people have gotten into pickling and preserving knowing about probiotics and some really great things that you can do the things that are probably great grandmother's did, maybe you have friends or people who are accustomed to doing that I didn't know a ton about it. And it's something that I'm passionate about trying to get more into. You store things in glass jars, which is actually better for you health wise, and I have gardens in my backyard. So there's a lot of things that you can do sustainably within your own home, I grow herbs in the house, so that you know things that have shelf life, so that if that refrigerator goes out of power, you've got things that you're like, I'm fine, I've got all these things in the house, I'm okay, I'm not running out. So that's something that's not only pocket pocket friendly. It's actually really interesting and health wise, really good for you. But it's also good for the environment. So
Jason Fuchs 22:01
the idea is to create sustainability through the things that you're growing. Yes, that way when if something does come through, heaven forbid, you've got those things to rely on, rather than trying to go out to the store
Nicole de Venoge 22:14
freezing things, bags of fruit, I've got fruit trees in my yard, kale, lettuce, all kinds of different vegetables that you can freeze. And so that yes, if there's a storm, you know, maybe you won't last that long. But usually within the week, we're going to have power back. So yeah, I also reuse a lot of my prep supplies. So let's say that you had things to board and cover windows, for example, you don't need to redo those every time, you should only have to do those once and save them if you're worried about space. And that's why I said it does matter what home you're in. But if you're you know don't have a lot of space, maybe you have an attic spot. Or maybe you can repurpose those covers as shelves or different items. I always keep some tarps in Yeah, just keep them in supply. They don't hold a lot of space. So there's something you can keep in that are very, very easy to preserve things. Yeah,
Jason Fuchs 23:05
our hurricane boards I haven't nailed to the walls of the garage. They don't take
Nicole de Venoge 23:11
up any room. They don't take up any room and it is an you're doing at once. And that's really the key is you don't want to have to keep purchasing things a multitude of times and then straining resources and with lumber three times the cost of what it currently is. I can only imagine with the you know, extra burdens on board
Jason Fuchs 23:27
everything up right now. Yeah, does that. I mean, if we can even get it though.
Nicole de Venoge 23:32
Yeah, yeah. And then as far as your yard goes, really keeping your house high and dry is always a concern. And so when I mentioned the ocean friendly garden program, we call it o f g for short. That is really a win win. Because what you're doing is you're mitigating that water, you're getting it away from the house itself, but keeping it onto the property and out of the storm drains so that they're not overflowing. And if you're somebody that lives out on the barrier island on the First Coast area or beyond that you are well aware of what happens when those fill. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. So you literally could have water lapping up to your front door.
Jason Fuchs 24:05
Wow. Okay, what else you got for us.
Nicole de Venoge 24:09
So, obviously, it's really important that you have copies and records. Everyone I would believe at this point has some form or way of recording whether it be a phone or just even a throwaway camera. You want to make some kind of recording of what you have so that you're aware and have all your memories. Yes, I would strongly suggest you do that when there isn't a an emergency coming. And you want to save that on some kind of flash drive or on some kind of cloud service making sure that you have a copy of that. Those are the things you want to do in advance so that you're not running around in circles but you're also not printing off a bunch of paper running out to get more ink. Absolutely. You just all you have to do is do a quick photo update, scan. They have great great software now embedded in most of the phones. out there now where you can get a really good record of that. And if not an
Jason Fuchs 25:03
SD card and upload it to the cloud
Nicole de Venoge 25:05
100% and any of your important documents, you can do the same thing with those, I
Jason Fuchs 25:10
strongly suggest that you do that. Okay, so let's kind of summarize this up, if you had to give us a list of maybe the top three are the top five things to work on. Now, to prepare for these unexpected, I guess we can call them disasters? What would that list be?
Nicole de Venoge 25:29
You want to have light? So you want to have those hand crank solar lantern, okay, you want a hand crank, radio, emergency radio, and then something to store your water. Okay, this to me, you cannot live without freshwater? Absolutely. And that's the the one thing that really, really when we get these big events, you don't want to be drinking out of anything. Oh, no.
Jason Fuchs 25:51
No, yeah,
Nicole de Venoge 25:53
those three things to me, I'm really obviously having your records in place as well have a plan. Yeah.
Jason Fuchs 25:59
And I love your idea of creating sustainability ahead of time by your thinking about how we're eating, you know, maybe doing some of that stuff at home, rather than relying on a store?
Nicole de Venoge 26:10
Well, I've lived on a budget A lot of people have. And if you've seen what happens when you're in a panic, you don't spend well think about if you're buying for a holiday. And what happens on Black Friday, for example, people will pay anything and do anything because they're in a rush, they want to get things and when they want them how they want them. But if you do anything in advance, being prepared is everything and that really fiscally benefits you and in and environmentally benefits. Yeah,
Jason Fuchs 26:35
and ladies and gentlemen, these things, they're they're not difficult tasks. I mean, hand crank radio, hand crank lanterns, those are something you can get now and keep them in your garage or your attic, or, you know, wherever you're storing the stuff that you're not using very often no batteries and no batteries. Absolutely. So I think those are great ideas. And, you know, planning things in the yard and your backyard, however you want to word it. You know, I think those are great activities that you can do with your family. You're helping the environment, and you're preparing for these unexpected events. So thank you for sharing those with us.
Nicole de Venoge 27:08
100%. Very you.
Jason Fuchs 27:09
You're welcome. Share
Nicole de Venoge 27:10
them.
Jason Fuchs 27:10
You're welcome. It's our pleasure. So what I like to do if it's okay with you, Nicole is conclude today's episode with a little q&a.
Nicole de Venoge 27:17
Oh, goodness, fun. Okay.
Jason Fuchs 27:18
All right, let's get into it now. I received a question from someone. Compliance won't allow me to use her real name. So we're gonna call her gab. gab asks, Is it possible to make money while helping Mother Nature? Great question gab. Going Green helping Mother Nature however you'd like to refer to it. Many of us want to help our planet. It can get costly, though. And I'm sure our listeners out there want to either recoup the costs or potentially make some money out of it. Ladies and gentlemen, I'm going to share with you three ways you can potentially make money by going green. I have many more, but for the sake of time, we're going to review three. You ready, Nicole? Yes. All right. And please chime in anytime you are our expert here. Okay, no pressure. Alright, ladies and gentlemen, number one, recycle. In my opinion, this is an easy one. And I always like to start with the easy ones. recycle your furniture, clothing, other reusable renewable items you have laying around. Yes, you can recycle by putting things in the bin, leaving it out on the curb and letting the recycle company come pick it up. You don't make money off of that. But guess what, there are a few ways you can make money off of recycling. So number one, some local municipalities, retail stores, they'll give you a rebate for recycling common items. For example, staples might offer you a $2 rebate when you return your empty ink. And listen, I get it it's two bucks. Who cares about two bucks, right? Well, why wouldn't you want to get paid for something you're gonna throw away anyway, and you're helping the planet. Speaking of retail, there are several online platforms where you can sell your used electronics. I do this quite a bit through Facebook marketplace. So every year I'm one of those guys that gets a new phone. That's my thing. I love technology, Nicole. But what I do is I sell the previous year's phone. I don't recoup the entire cost of the new phone but I'm able to recoup about 50 to 60% of the cost so I don't have to pay full price for a new phone and I'm helping the environment. You can also recycle lightly worn clothing or furniture by donating and receiving a tax deduction so number two and how to make money through recycling. Once a year my family and I we go through all of our belongings not all at once just kind of you know as the year starts January, February, March. We have a quote unquote policy but I think if it has been using a year? donate it. And that's exactly what we do.
Nicole de Venoge 30:03
Maybe not this year,
Jason Fuchs 30:04
maybe not this Well, yeah, good point. Okay, maybe we'll do two year olds. Okay. We'll do the two year old ladies and gentlemen. So it's great because you're not using this stuff. By donating it, you're able to help someone else in need. And again, you're saving the planet. Number three, you could sell items at a local consignment shop. Now ladies, for example, my wife's company YOLO, luxury consignment, Amber resells pre used luxury items, handbags, for example. So if you have a purse laying around at your house that you're not using, or that you want to get rid of reach out to Amber, and she'll sell it for you. And guess what, you get a part of the proceeds for that. That's so awesome. And what's really neat is it's all about sustainability. And that's one of the things amber preaches through YOLO is the fact that she's able to help the environment by not getting rid of all this, this stuff.
Nicole de Venoge 31:01
I love all those ideas. I was gonna say, Jason, that reducing should be our first thought, no matter what we always want to think Do I really need it? And and that's something that maybe is an uncomfortable question for us. Sometimes we all want to get what we want to get when we like our stuff, we like our stuff. But really, the more things you have, believe it or not, it stresses you out. And I absolutely loved some of those ideas you were talking about, I wanted to put a little chime in for terracycle. Also, you may have noticed those boxes around the beach that are black boxes for your cigarette butts, we send our cigarette butts that we pick up at the beach off to terracycle. And you get $1 per pound that goes to the keep America beautiful program. And they take those cigarette butts and they reuse them into benches and all kinds of different projects, parks and so on. That's so neat. I love that program. But it also is applicable to the office space. Okay, so you can pre order these boxes from terracycle and things like highlighters, pens, all these plastic things that like for example, through the company, Bic, they will recycle, repurpose, reuse all those items, they will take them back, it does not cost you anything to send the box, okay, he closed it up, you send it off at UPS, it's amazing. Check it off at your house. So, Surfrider Foundation really loves all those ideas that you were mentioning, and particularly the consignment I love that amber is doing that I really tried to buy as many things that way that I can. The more that you're taking out of that manufacturing. Oh, yeah. That materials and really honestly, a lot of those things are some of our big offenders, particularly textiles.
Jason Fuchs 32:40
Yeah. So ladies and gentlemen, YOLO luxury consignment.com. I'll go ahead and put that link in the description of the podcast for you. So that was three ways to make money by recycling. So that was number one. So what we're gonna do is we're gonna get into number two, Nicole, you ready? Sure. Energy Efficient tax incentives. By being energy efficient, you can save some money. You can also earn money through federal state local tax incentives that are available for businesses, individuals and families. tax breaks, like rebates. For example, they give you direct cash back,
Nicole de Venoge 33:17
I just scored a huge one. Jason All right. Awesome digit. Absolutely.
Jason Fuchs 33:21
You got the rebate,
Nicole de Venoge 33:21
I did awesome. Energy hooked me up all your dues, you know, get an energy efficient new if you're getting a new h fac or anything like that. It was awesome. Good. I basically for six months to enough pain and energy bill.
Jason Fuchs 33:34
So rebates are great because you get the money back. Another way you can benefit is through credits and deductions. Now, you're not going to get that money up front. But during tax time, when you get your refund, you're going to notice that that refund is a little larger. So for example, there the tax credit example rather, there's a federal tax credit up to 30% of the cost of installation of certain solar energy systems. Another example employees at certain companies, they can choose to opt into pre tax benefits like commuting and carpooling, their monthly mass transit passes can be deducted from their taxable wages. I was able to take advantage of this when amber and I lived in DC. I took the metro fairly often to see clients and I was taking the train back and forth to New York for some projects I was working on. So that was a great way to get money into an account pre tax so you don't have to worry about taxes. Another example if you drive and purchase an electric vehicle, you might be eligible for a federal tax credit up to $7,500. Who would want 7500 bucks for buying a car that they want anyway, right. Another example donating clothes. You know we talked about this earlier with the recycling. You might be able to apply those to your tax deduction. So ladies and gentlemen, make sure you check your state and local tax code For other incentives, now we're moving along nicely to coal. We're already on our third way to make money by going green. Awesome. Number one recycle. Number two energy efficient tax incentives. And guess what number three is nickel. Alright, so number three, invest in green companies. Now this is something we discussed in our most recent episode of dad cents. That episode is called five ways to reduce your business expenses today. In that episode, we got to the bottom of what socially responsible investing exactly is also called ESG. Now you can use your investments in any cash you have on hand to hold companies and the government accountable for the protection of our planet. This is also a great strategy to say for a future goal. You know, if you want to buy new home, if you want to start a business, if you want your kids to go to college if you want to retire, for example, ladies and gentlemen, take the time to research and choose the best companies that are committed to following green business practices and clean energy. When you're searching, use words like ESG, or socially responsible investing or socially responsible stock bond funds. Use that when you're online searching. We also have some great resources at Sage path. So check it out at WWE Sage path FA comm for more ideas. Some companies are certified as be for benefit corporations, those companies meet rigorous standards of social and environmental performance. How you feel on the call.
Nicole de Venoge 36:34
That's some awesome information, actually. Thank you. I'm excited about that. I
Jason Fuchs 36:37
am too.
Nicole de Venoge 36:38
There's some things I've been hearing about going on in Orlando with some of the sustainability and banking Yeah, really cool stuff.
Jason Fuchs 36:44
Very exciting thing. Yeah. Yeah, very neat. anything you'd like to add? Oh, goodness,
Nicole de Venoge 36:48
you covered quite a bit of awesome stuff.
Jason Fuchs 36:51
Ladies and gentlemen going green. It can be a great way to help our planet but it can get complicated. Lean on me for support. I have expertise with this and other financial matters have been doing it for a long time. Ladies and gentlemen, if you have pressing fears or questions, all you need to do is go to our website www that Sage path FA comm click that calendar link at the top of the page and scheduled time with me. I am freely giving of my time. I care about the environment. I care about the health of the community. I'm a business owner and guess who I work with business owners. If I can help you in any way Ladies and gentlemen, especially if it's answering financial related questions or speaking with your peers, please connect with me. What's my point? Just know that I'm available. Nicole, anything else on your heart you
Nicole de Venoge 37:44
want to add? On June 26 at the Jacksonville Beach pier from 9am to 11am. Surfrider First Coast we'll be out there cleaning up we'll have buckets and gloves. And we would love to have you out there help clean up our beaches. We are there the last Saturday of every single month and July 5, we will be announcing on our Instagram locations. There will be multiple cleanups going on after the Fourth of July busy busy beach time. And if you have any questions or anything you wanted to ask, you could email me at chair at first coast.surfrider.org
Jason Fuchs 38:22
and if people are online trying to find you what's the best place to find First Coast Surfrider.
Nicole de Venoge 38:27
So we have a Facebook page and Instagram. Okay, hopefully Instagram for all the young ones. Why don't have a tick tock sorry. Bye, but we do have some really great resources@www.surfrider.org Well,
Jason Fuchs 38:43
thank you so much for being here.
Nicole de Venoge 38:45
Thanks so much for having me. Oh, it's our pleasure.
Jason Fuchs 38:47
I had a ton of fun. To all our listeners out there. Thank you so much for sticking around. I appreciate all of you make it a great day. And now the part we all love the disclosures, securities and investment advisory services offered through FSC securities Corp FSC member FINRA s IPC FSC is separately owned and other entities and or marketing names, products or services referenced here are independent of FSC. This show is not meant to provide legal or tax advice, nor is it a recommendation for any specific investment. Jason Fuchs, Nicole Sage path and FSC are unaffiliated. This episode is sponsored by Dunham and Associates investment council Inc. Sage path financial advisors is located at 512 rosebud lane, Neptune Beach, Florida 3226