--- title: Teen Has A Plan That WIll Save The Government $400 Million description: Suvir Mirchandani think the government can alleviate the federal deficit, just by changing fonts canonical: https://time.com/42627/teen-government-million-font/ author: Sam Frizell article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-03-29T17:55:22.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:08:20.369Z og:title: Teen Has A Plan That WIll Save The Government $400 Million og:description: Suvir Mirchandani think the government can alleviate the federal deficit, just by changing fonts og:url: https://time.com/42627/teen-government-million-font/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Teen Has A Plan That WIll Save The Government $400 Million twitter:description: Suvir Mirchandani think the government can alleviate the federal deficit, just by changing fonts twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Teen Has a Plan to Save the Government $400 Million by [Sam Frizell](https://time.com/author/sam-frizell/) ## Sam Frizell Mar 29, 2014 5:55 PM UTC by [Sam Frizell](https://time.com/author/sam-frizell/) ## Sam Frizell Mar 29, 2014 5:55 PM UTC Remembering to pack lunch and catch the school bus on time? Sure, got it. Solving the federal deficit? Um, yeah, maybe. That’s kind of what a day in the life of 14-year-old Suvir Mirchandani looks like. Mirchandani has figured out that by changing the standard typeface on government documents from Times New Roman to Garamond, the federal and state governments could save up to $400 million in ink costs. That’s because Garamond uses far less ink than government-recommended fonts like Times New Roman and Century Gothic, according to Mirchandani. He [published](http://www.emerginginvestigators.org/2014/03/ink-cost-2/) his findings in the peer-reviewed _Journal for Emerging Investigators_ earlier in March. With a federal government printing expenditure of $1.8 billion, and state government costs estimated at $1.3 billion, even a slight reduction in ink usage could save hundred of millions of dollars, says Mirchandani. Other teens, meanwhile, are still changing the font size on periods throughout their papers to hit assignment page-length requirements. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/42627/teen-government-million-font/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/42627/teen-government-million-font/"},"headline":"Teen Has a Plan to Save the Government $400 Million","datePublished":"2014-03-29T17:55:22.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:08:20.369Z","description":"Fourteen-year-old Suvir Mirchandani figured that by changing the standard typeface on government documents, the federal and state governments could save hundred of millions of dollars in ink costs","url":"https://time.com/42627/teen-government-million-font/","keywords":["Newsfeed","Bizarre","Government","teen"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Sam Frizell","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/sam-frizell/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/42627/teen-government-million-font/","name":"Teen Has a Plan to Save the Government $400 Million"}}]}] ```