Eco Friendly House And Garden

Reusable bags are all around us these days – but what are the pro’s and cons?

I myself use several types of different bags for different occasions – but my friend thinks that they are the worst thing ever! Why are there so many types and why wouldn’t you like them?

Their Purpose In Life:
After listening to my friend discussing why he didn’t like my reusable bags – I asked him why they were invented in the first place. He went for the eco friendly angle – but in reality, they are just a replacement for a plastic carrier bag.

photo credit: Rachel Medina

Now I really don’t like plastic bags from supermarkets as they have no real shape, they are noisy, they tear easily, they are painful to carry if heavy and you can’t put them over your shoulder to carry. However, my reusable bags are the opposite to all this.

Bulky Jute Bag:
My bulky jute bag has great shape to it, even when set on the floor. The handles are soft and wide and just long enough to sit over my shoulder if I want to shift the weight.

It is larger than A4 so I can keep books and notes in it, and being open-topped I can easily get things out and find things as and when needed.

It does have its downsides though; firstly this open-topped feature means that security is low when I am in a crowd or when I take a rest and place my bag on the floor, and if I don’t have anything in the bag (like on the way to the library) you can’t fold it up and it tends to flap about in the wind.

Flimsy Cotton Bag:
I have several flimsy white cotton bags with various different companies advertising on the side – but all are basically the same shape and size. They are very easy to shove into my rucksac or other bags so that when finding something extra to carry they can flap open and be filled with goodies.

They are a light as a feather and so I can take all 4 out with me without them becoming a nuisance – and I am not too bothered if I carry them around all day and don’t use them.

And they can be washed.

Their downside is that they have no structure whatsoever and loading them up 1-handed can be a bit of a pain sometimes. With the extra long and thin handles (perfect for over the shoulder action) they can get all tangled up when trying to unfold and carrying them by your side is impossible – as they drag along the floor.

The Result?
Well, I just love my reusable bags (including the fact that nearly all of them were free with a promotion) and although they each have their uses – they are a zillion times better than plastic carriers – and much easier to use than a bulky rucsack with zips (and the fact that it is on your back!).

I mean, if you get them any bigger, they would just be holdalls – which are of course – reusable bags too!

I think that small reusable bags have filled a niche that needed filling – with or without their perfect eco credentials – and I would be just as happy to use a non-organic material reusable bag over a carrier anyday.

photo credit: New Internationalist

Spring is famous for its lambs (as well as pancakes and daffodils) – so go see some!

What better way to support your local farms and landscapes than to head off into the countryside to watch some of the cutest little lambs bounce around the yard or field!

Sheep farming has seen a small comeback – as we are focussing on returning landscapes to past habitats – like chalkland heaths and grasslands – and you can't do this without grazing.  It is essential to have sheep grazing our sloping hillsides otherwise the whole place would become covered in bramble and gorse and all the native wildplants would never be seen again.

Unfortunately – it wouldn't be just the blanket of summer flowers that disappeared either.  Insects such as butterflies depend heavily on certain plants to complete their lifecycle, so if the plants aren't there – neither will the butterflies and other flying creatures.  And these insects are foodstuffs for birds and bats – so on up the food chain until they have all given up living near you and gone elsewhere.

Basically – you lose top predators like foxes and sparrowhawks from the area if you get rid of small flowers on a hillside.  And all you get instead are tall trees and scavengers!

Your Local Farm:

No doubt your farm – just as with many other niche markets – has seen a certain amount of 'belt tightening' recently.  But they must still farm their sheep to keep everything in shape. 

photo credit: Tambako the Jaguar

If they were to take a few years off until the market picked back up – their grass fields could already be at the point of no return.  The fast-growing scrubby plants don't take long to spread out – and sheep can't eat them – so that land will have to be stripped by hand, or left to grow over.

So, by popping into a local lambing open day – you could help make it all worth while.  Especially if the farm had branched out into other areas – like homemade jams, chutneys and cakes, honey, meat and wool products.  Imagine the haul of farmyard goodies you could end up coming home with.

You would be buying your own little piece of the countryside!

Your choice of festive gift could mean the difference between survival or big changes!

But in this case – both choices can have huge effects down the line – I mean do you choose between losing local services or losing the fight against poverty, animal cruelty and climate change?

It needn’t be that huge a choice – but we already know that buying off the Internet can have a negative effect on the high street and local stores as they are losing customers – but what about shopping for ‘invisible gifts’ instead?

By this I mean the ‘keep giving’ gifts like a one-off donation to a child overseas, the gift of a farm animal to an African farmer, sponsorship of an endangered animal or annual membership to a conservation society.

The recipient of the gift doesn’t get the gift itself – they just get proof of this great donation from you.  They will know that the money you have spent on their behalf will be invested in the future and help whichever cause that was chosen.

photo credit: Effervescing Elephant

I have received and given many such gifts myself over the years: I was given sponsorship for Mr Crusty the donkey last year – (and he is doing fine!) and joined up my niece and nephews to the RSPB as well.

What About The High Street?
As you can imagine these types of gift don’t involve shops on the high street – you mainly buy them online or direct from the charity or organisation.

But then the gifts available in the stores could be said to be less eco friendly in the sense that they have an eco footprint.  They are manufactured somewhere and transported to your stores.

Yes, you can choose only those gifts made locally, out of sustainable materials or eco friendly related for the home or garden – but they are still gifts in the sense that they need to be made, used and then disposed of at some point.

However, the very act of going into Town can be locally supportive.  The carpark fee, train fares, bus tickets – they all go towards supporting local businesses as well as the fact that you might stop for a coffee while you are there – and hopefully buy things to boot!

Supportive Gifts:
When you sponsor a child or donkey – it’s all done online in a few seconds.  No need to travel anywhere.

You still use up paperwork and postage with these gifts for the confirmation letter, but no need to travel into town, or wrap things up with bows and labels!

I mean, these gifts really are the ethical and the more eco friendly when compared to games, ornaments and ‘silly’ presents that we seem to see in the stores – as these types of gifts are those most likely to need batteries, have excess packaging and be thrown away after a few months use.

But when you think about helping local business people or distant wildlife or habitats – the line isn’t quite as clear.

I must admit that I feel a bit better about myself when I support distant projects such as rainforests, tigers with WWF and cross river gorillas with FFI as they seem ‘more important’ in the sense that they are the last of their kind on the edge of extinction - whereas you can open a new shop in 2 years time.

However, if the stores aren’t there to sell me gifts – will they be there to sell me other things when I need them?  I’m getting a bit sick of giant out-of-town superstores these days – so I need the high street to stay competitive and still stock everything I need all year round.

I think this one is stil undecided!

Did you know that the money in your savings account could be destroying habitats?

When you invest your savings into a pension fund or other savings accounts – do you actually know what happens to it?

Do you think it just sits in the bank you are using earning interest?  No it certainly doesn’t!  Your bank or other company use it to fund other deals around the world to make your interest.

And they may be using it directly: through funding a company or buying that company’s products, or indirectly; by funding other companies who happen to fund that company or buy their products.

Now, what if that company were drilling for oil in the Amazon and had had a few serious leaks over the past 10 years?  What if that company were growing oil palm in Borneo after clearing hectares of prime rainforest?  

Do you know where your interest is coming from?  Has that extra £500 you earned last year cost the livelihoods of tribal warriers in Brazil, or the actual lives of the dwindling numbers of wild orangutans left in Borneo?

photo credit: BlatantWorld.com

Ask Questions:
So, next time you are thinking about what you can spend your savings on – think what they have cost the planet and the animals and people on it.

However, the way to feel good about your savings is to have invested in a suitable eco investment.  Such schemes may well fund replanting of woodlands for eco friendly timber; planting of rare plants and trees for niche industries like violin manufacture; or green oil production.

Find out where your bank is going to be investing your money before you hand it over.  All the while nobody is asking – they will just carry on as usual.  If the returns are calculated purely on financial gain – then your money will probably never be spent on green alternatives.

Make sure your bank is aware of your concerns for their spending – and you may well be part of the crowd that makes them change their funding.

It’s Your Money!
The irony of your investments could be ridiculous if you actually looked into it.  I mean you could be donating £10 a month to an eco friendly charity trying to halt the destruction of coral reefs – yet investing in shipping industries who regularly travel through these delicate waters damaging the coral.

Or you are making sure that you buy sustainable consumer products – while funding the farming companies who are blanketing the earth with monocultures and oil plantations at the loss of the very environments your ethical products are trying to save.

Basically you are funding both sides of the argument.  You are paying for the destruction in the first place and then funding the charity who is trying to ‘fix’ the problems afterwards!

And of course it also means that you are paying twice: once to break it, then again to fix it!

Wasted time is the great enemy of an eco friendly professional!

Not arriving at an appointment on time can cause a huge drain on resources, peoples time, money and generally increasing your chances of opting for a more expensive and less eco friendly alternative.

Time is an invented concept that we hope to stick to – but being late can ruin a good day.  Not only for you – but also for the planet.

We all know that being eco friendly needs careful planning – and last minute fixes nearly always mean spending a fortune on a waste of resources!

The Scenario:
Say you are planning to meet a like minded associate to discuss a new product for your eco friendly business to promote.  The appointment is 10am in your city business lounge – to create a good impression.

You plan to arrive 2 hours before the appointment so that you can buy some locally made organic/fair trade/vegetarian food and drink to bring to the lounge for the meeting and to print off some last minute sales figures before she arrives.

However, you take a bit longer getting ready in the morning for no particular reason – but you know that the buses are regular so you plan to catch the next one.  That next one is delayed, so you miss your link on the train and lose another 25 minutes waiting on the platform.

You get a little bit stressed while you are waiting – thinking of what order to do things in now as you have lost around 45 minutes of time.

On arriving close to your lounge – with just under an hour to spare – you now have a new plan – but you don’t have time to walk……

photo credit: ~Sincere Stock~

The figures are more important than the food, so you head to the office in a cab straight away – however there isn’t a free colour printer for another 20 minutes as you missed your slot – so you get a bit more stressed and decide to print them in black and white so you at least have something to hand.

Then you remember the food – but now it’s too late to get to the local store – so you call a small scale catering company that the receptionist recommended and order whatever they can make at such short notice and deliver it ready to eat.

With 10 minutes to go – the colour printer becomes free and you know that this will create a better company image so you print all your figures again in colour just in time to collect the food from reception and get to the lounge before your colleague.

When she arrives, you offer her a drink and some food.  She asks if its vegetarian, and you sheepishly admit that you don’t know – so she declines.  The office coffee isn’t fair trade either, so you get her a plastic cup of tap water in the mean time – and pay reception to run out and get a suitable drink.

She asks for your figures and you pass her your file without thinking as you are still whirring from the stress, and she reads your black and white print out, and likes what she sees – however, she then finds your colour printouts of exactly the same figures underneath……..

The Result?
A complete waste of resources – just piling up higher and higher throughout the morning.  And eco friendly anything (apart from public transport) went out the window!

Planning ahead is an essential part of being eco friendly and running a successful business.  We all know that problems arise that are unavoidable – but when you really analyse everything that has caused you delays in the past few months – or even days – I bet it all just comes down to bad planning.

Those reports that your assistant didn’t get to you on time – did you really give them enough time to do it in the first place?  Did you really give your partner all the information you could have before asking them to make that important decision? 

If you used that software upgrade instead of inputting data by hand – could you have got home to see your son/daughter/nephew/niece/partner/parent in that sports day/one-off performance/school or college assembly/conference/graduation/any other achievement or anniversary?

Think about it – and think ahead.

Female Dogs are still being forced to have litter, after litter, after litter, after litter, after litter……..

The only way they can get to stop this repeated assault and to be freed from their small and very dirty cage or crate is to die – then they get thrown outside into a bin or hole in the ground!

And this is no lie or just some horror story made up by rescue centres – type in ‘puppy farm’ or ‘puppy mill’ in an ‘images’ Internet search – and you will see the evidence!

Basically puppy farms only exist because people are STILL buying the puppies – even after years and years of advertising and petitioning by rescue centres and animal welfare bodies!  People just can’t see sense.

So, what can you do to stop this trade in endless puppy farming without spending an extra penny?  Well if you want to buy a puppy - read through the advice below:

1) Check Out A Rescue Centre:
There are always pedigree and first cross puppies filling up rescue centres all the time.  Only this week there are 18 puppies at a local RSPCA centre; 8 mastiff cross, 6 lurchers and 4 spaniels – all cute and all looking for homes!  And there are hundreds more waiting in other centres too!

These are usually unwanted litters – basically the owner did not neuter their female dog and a free-roaming neighbouring male dog got to her when she was in season.  Hey presto – a litter of first cross puppies are born! 

By getting your puppy from a centre like this is a great way to stop puppy farm breeders – as the less puppies they sell, the less likely they are to breed more.   

2) Being Really Picky With Your Breeder:
Well the first thing you can do is not ever buy a puppy from a breeder advertising in a local newspaper in the first place.  Yes, there are some genuine breeders out there who want to sell their puppies – but it is often not easy to spot them in local publications amongst the ‘money-makers’.

You need to look out for a couple of things before calling anyone, as there are many clear signs that can tell you that these people don’t actually really ‘love’ their dogs – and are therefore probably just after the money.  Than if you do call – check out a few further details…..

Advertising More Than 1 Pedigree Breed For Sale:  
What type of irresponsible pet carer allows 2,3 or even 7 of her female pets to become pregnant at the same time?  If they are ‘pedigree’ dogs – then the owner has actually paid and arranged for the many seperate male dogs to come and do the stud work!  And what sort of ‘loving’ pet owner can keep up to 7 female dogs as pets in the same home?  No-one – so all these bitches are outside in kennels.

Giving Only A Mobile Number:
Are they saying that they are more likely to be away from home than looking after the puppies?

Saying That You Might Not Be Able To See The Mother:
By the time you can collect the puppies the female could be pregnant again – or skeletal!  If she hasn’t had the correct nutrition through the latter stages of the pregnancy (or her whole life) then she will look totally bony and exhausted by the time the pups are ready for rehoming.  No wonder they won’t let you see her!

However, you should be suspicious if you do see the mother and she hasn’t got very swollen and dangly nipples – it means that the puppy isn’t hers even if she is sniffing it or the puppy is trying to suckle.  Whelping females (females that have just given birth) have unmistakably dangly boobies!

The Puppies Are Less Than 8 Weeks Old:
In an ideal world for the puppy – it should stay with it’s siblings and in the company of it’s mother up to between 8 and 12 weeks.  Puppies younger than this are really a little too young to be rehomed – no matter how cute they look – so the secret is to not look at them in the first place!

All puppies are cute – otherwise we wouldn’t want to get one in the first place.  And if you are looking for a particular pedigree breed – then they will look virtually identical anyway as that is the idea behind being a pedigree in the first place!

Offering To Meet You ’Halfway’ Or To ‘Drop It Off At Your House’:
This plays on the ‘falling in love with the cute puppy’ syndrome.  Breeders want to be seen as kind and friendly by saving you the trip to meet them - but in fact they are just making sure you don’t see the state of their kennels and the poor suffering bitches in their puppy farm!

If you want a cute chocolate Labrador puppy and have your money in hand – and the breeders turn up with a very cute chocolate Labrador in their hands – you will take it from them.  Even if it is too young, a ‘bit poorly’ has an ‘upset tummy’ or even a sore foot or cut on it’s face!

Basically – you will be so ‘in love’ with it that you will still pay full price for a ‘sick’ puppy – it even adds to the appeal - I mean how could you turn it away?  

That’s their plan – and you fell for it!  Just like the thousands of people before you that they have been supplying with puppy farmed pets!

So What Can You Do?
You need to be tough – but the only way to stop this is to make sure that you don’t ‘feel sorry’ for a puppy, and don’t buy any that fit the above ‘dodgy’ criteria.

Every puppy farmed puppy you do buy just gives the breeders good reason to go and breed a whole new litter.  If you could make around £4000 for a litter of cocker spaniels – imagine how much you could make if you had 10 bitches breeding 2 or 3 times a year?

But, if you made nothing at all from the first litter – but had spent £1000′s of your own money feeding these 10 bitches and their 80 puppies and didn’t sell any – would you do it again?

Make sure you plan your puppy purchase so that you are not cornered by these people or fall in love with a sick or badly bred puppy!  There are plenty of healthy loved puppies out there to choose from!

Brilliant ideas to purify your lifestyle and feel good about it – she says….

Basically this book tries to cover all the organic and natural ways you can overcome the ‘evil’ or modern products and all the chemicals they contain.

And to prove it, she divides her advice up into 48 categories of ‘nasties’ including make-up and nappies. She explains in each case why we need to swap to more natural alternatives – by using scientific and medical arguments against each – and then offers organic, (man-made) chemical-free and more ‘natural’ products or ingredients that you could use instead.

The Book Itself:
I loved the layout of this book, and it was so easy to read that you find yourself reading chapter after chapter.  Each chapter is a 4-6 page debate as to the pro’s and con’s of each mini subject including for example, Make-Up, chocolate and toothpaste.

Hughes-Cooper helps to explain some of the main down-sides to the products we use today and offers alternatives.  There isn’t a full explanation of each due to the ‘short’ nature of each chapter, and some of her answers or arguments are a bit vague or non-proven – but she certainly makes you think about all these issues while you are reading. 

She regularly uses phrases like ’this is totally natural’ – but remember that this is what they used to say about Arsenic, Lead and radio-active products that ‘glow in the dark’. It’s also important to remember that anything that can be found in plants, animals or in the earth is technically ‘natural’ in origin, but I doubt you will be in a hurry to use toadstools, uranium or snake venom in your kitchen or bathroom!

Due to the way in which you can read through this book relatively quickly, I found that I would stop for a moment after reading a particular fact and think ‘Oh my goodness, I should stop using that’ but then read on through to another section and do the same again. It seemed like page after page of doom and gloom, and worries about my health, but then I just carried on reading.  Almost like I wanted to find out how awful I was being to my own body, but then actually did nothing about it.

As with most of the ‘best things’ in this life, whether it’s growing your own veg, not flying, using only organic make-up, growing sprouted mung bens and seeking out the parabens free version of everything, the thought of it all just seems to overwhelm the normal working person.  I myself would love to consider doing most of the things Hughes-Cooper recommends in her book, but the time it would take and the possible financial costs just seem a bit prohibitive.  And it left me feeling like a bit of a failure!

Yes, there are some easy ones to achieve, like growing my own herbs in the window box and buying organic milk (as I do them already), but others I hadn’t really thought of doing, like buying hemp products instead of 100% cotton and un-bleached feminine products – which should both be quite easy to start doing. 

However, something else caught my attention as I read this book: Organic doesn’t automatically mean eco friendly – you might need a trade-off.  For example making your own smoothies, fruit juices, pies and vegetable noodles, all involve buying a new piece of electrical equipment – and creates a lot more washing up!  Neither of these are eco friendly.

Should you buy organic wines from Australia or non-organic British wines?  Think of the weight of the glass bottles coming from the other side of the world!  And there are constant references to using ‘natural’ cleaning products like white vinegar and bicarbonate of soda – but can you imagine what would happen if we all used these instead of all the shop-brought cleaners?  Vinegar is from grapes – so excessive amounts of water-hungry fruits will need to be grown to keep up with demand; and the soda is mined from the ground – so imaging habitats being destroyed to ‘naturally’ clean all the kitchens in the UK and US! 

I totally agree, however, that our actions can make us humans healthier and at the same time have less of a ‘chemical’ impact on the environment.  And sometimes the choice you have is so very simple.  However, there is still so much that you need to work quite hard to achieve, and I just don’t think that everything in this book can be achieved by a working family.

I mean I thought I was putting a reasonable effort in to the whole eco friendly/organic movement, but have only seemed to have achieved about a third of the things mentioned in the book. with maybe alf a dozen or so more in the pipeline now after reading it.  So, I hope that everyone who reads it (just like me) manages to get a few new ideas from it, because all those small things will soon add up!

Result: 3/5
If you were just reading this book the one time, then it might not really be of any use to you, other than making you think about how many toxins you and your children have absorbed over your lifetime, but if you were to use this as a reference book then things could be very different – and my Result would rise to 4/5 for it.

It certainly has it’s uses as a starting point for the layman, and has highlighted a few new things for me, but the thought of searching endlessly on the Internet for the right products, or reading label after label when I only have 10 minutes free time before having to collect the kids from school – or worse still, I have the kids in tow, then these things become unreasonable to achieve.

This book is part of the  ’52 Briliant Ideas’ series, so I will be looking out for other relevant books to give me some more inspiration!

ISBN: 978-1-905940-57-8

Eco friendly and Fair Trade products are on the increase – and you can be a part of their success!

The only reason manufacturers never really use eco friendly resources for their products is because consumers as a whole were never really ‘that’ bothered where things came from – as long as we liked them in the first place and they were not too expensive. 

Even today, you may well still be buying products that don’t have a branded logo on them, like ‘fair trade’ or ‘FSC certified’ – even though these products are available.

Why?  Well, you can answer that one yourself.  I bet it’s the simple reason that they aren’t always available in your local shops, and if they are available there is very little selection for you to choose from.

The Problem:
Lets take, for example, tea for this first problem.  Fair trade tea has been available for years, but it started out as just the one type.  Basically you had to choose to have fair trade tea in the only flavour that it came in, or you could have non-fair trade tea in any flavour that you wanted (and had probably been drinking your whole life).  Not such a difficult choice for most: they went for flavour.

Secondly, with the example of shoes; one pair of plain, non-offensive brown shoes may have been made by a community of Fair Trade workers in India.  However, because they were made with care and a premium paid for their certification, they were usually a lot pricier than their non-fair trade equivalent shoes that came in a huge variety of shapes, colours and styles.  Again, factors were working against the new products.

Yet others were so hard to get hold of that they would never be seen by over 80% of the population.  Whether they were only stocked by online stores or only found in ‘hippy’ or ‘alternative health stores’ it didn’t matter.  If they weren’t on the shelf in Boots, M&S or Tesco – most people wouldn’t ever see them – and so most people wouldn’t buy them.

And ultimately, their scarcity and high(ish) prices meant that no-one could really recommend them to the general public as so few people wanted to risk their money on an unusual of slightly different product.

Step Into Today’s Market:
However, as we find today, there are now a whole host of ethical or eco friendly alternatives to almost every product available today.  They are still only really a small slice of the market, but at least now people are starting to actually ‘like’ and search for these products.

And we know that retail responed to this by stocking more – so by using such products ourselves, we are creating a better future market for these types of products.

Whether you prefer to help the planet by buying organic products, or you want to help distant farming communities with your support of Fair Trade doesn’t matter.  What matters is that you are buying these things in the first place.

And, the more support these products get, the cheaper they become too.  The reason why a lot of organic or fair trade products were not for sale in high street stores is because their retail price was so expensive compared to existing alternatives that there was no point taking them on – they were a ‘waste of shelf space’.

But now demand has made these product more reasonably priced and able to compete with known brands.  Take for example Ethletics cotton sneakers.

These cotton baseball boots look virtualy identical to a well known brand of baseball boots and shoes.  They come in the same huge array of colours, both for kids and adults, short or long, and even personalized designs – and they are even the same price.

However, Ethletics shoes are made with only organic cotton, use an FSC approved rubber source, offer a Fair Trade price for both the rubber, the cotton and the workforce and are 100% vegan and contain absolutely no plastic.

The other brand make none of these claims.  It doesn’t have to, it’s been selling it’s footwear for years based on the brand alone.  It may well use these same workers or forests for their supplies, and their shoes might also be free of animal derivatives – but they just don’t need to tell us.

Your Choice:
Whether you personally support the manufacturer who offers you certified proof of all their ethical attributes doesn’t really matter.

What matters is that we have got to a point where you can’t say you didn’t have a choice. 

But doing the right thing no longer means walking around in sandals, wearing a baggy t-shirt eating lentils.  Being ethical is now a lifestyle choice without the compromise.

Being ethical today means having everything you are used to, but sourcing it wisely!

We probably all owe money on something – but it isn’t doing anyone any favours!

Nobody likes to owe anyone any money – but if you needed any persuasion to pay it off sooner – think about all the good you could be doing with the interest instead:

• £4 a month – become a member of WWF to help save wildlife
• £20 one off donation – help Great Ormond Street Hospital
• £ANY – a year – buy fair trade food instead
• £ANY a quarter – change your energy supplier to a green one

I know we don’t like to spend extra money on things if we don’t have to, but if you are happy to pay that loan interest, or that credit card payment – why not use the same money for other more useful things – rather than just paying the banks!

Pay Off Your Bills Sooner!
I know it sounds obvious, but many people are quite happy to keep paying the minimum payments – and aren’t usually in and hurry to pay them early either.

We all want more money in our pockets – and who can blame us – but paying interest for anything is a complete waste of our money and our money’s potential.

Rather than paying £50 a month for nothing, that money could have helped buy a chunk of rainforest, saved the lives of 100 children in the developing world or helped build a wind farm instead of mining for more oil!

Change Your Life:
By working out how much you are paying a year in interest, you might really see what a difference you could be making to your own life as well.

I’m not talking about the ‘happy feeling’ of not having any debts, I’m talking about all the things you could have done for yourself with the money.

If you are paying a loan repayment of around £100 a month – that is £1200 a year that you could have spent on a training course to change careers, £1200 on stock or services if you were starting an eco business or £1200 to spend on eco renovations to your home.

If you are renting it could mean spending that extra £100 on a larger property, and if you own your home, that money could be paying off your mortgage a lot sooner.

Get Started:
So, speak to an independent financial advisor about the best way to pay off your bills for a better life for you!

Don’t always rely on your same old bank – especially if it them who you owe the money too as they want to keep you with them!  They may show you a better deal from their current one – but it will only be to their next best one – not necessarily the best product for you.

I’m not saying that your bank (or any bank) is trying to keep you in debt, it’s just that as a business, they would rather you were in debt with them rather than anyone else!  You can’t blame them really can you.

So by using independent or government-run financial agencies, you can be sure of getting a fair deal and great advice.

Get Sorting:
And, to help you out, why not refresh your own thinking to get things moving – after all what you spend on other things can’t go towards paying off your bills – and there could be a better eco friendly option too!

For example, try not to subscribe to magazines that you don’t really read – especially if they are available for less money as online magazines (no paper, no postage, etc).

By reducing your dependence on processed foods and by growing your own vegetables – you could seriously cut down on your food bills, and the same goes for electrical goods – turning off things you only use once in a while can reduce energy bills. 

And if you want to buy new clothes – make sure you sell your old ones first!

Here we are again – with some quick easy steps to staying green…..

1) Buy Old Stuff:
Choose products that contain recycled materials otherwise why are we bothering to separate out our rubbish in the first place! 

There is no point expecting people to wash out and separate out all their plastics and glass if we aren’t prepared to buy the stuff we make out of it all!  Something is only worth making if people are going to buy it – I mean you don’t see trifle flavoured crisps or eyeball pies in your shops do you?

2) Buy New Stuff:
If you see a new product that supports Fair Trade, palm oil certification, MSC or anything else – make sure you are one of it’s new supporters!

If someone has bothered to make something that supports something you believe in, then the least you can do is buy it occasionally.  Sometimes these eco friendly versions are just as tasty as the normal things you buy, but that extra 50p you spend could make all the difference.

3) Bring Your Own Stuff:
We all remember to save our bags for shopping, and nearly all of us remember to take our bags to the stores – but then we go and leave them in the car! 

So, try to make a concerted effort to remember your bags when shopping, and to take more than you think you will need.  The number of times I only wanted ‘a few things’ and ended up remembering a whole load of other stuff – far out-weighing my original bag capacity! 

4) Leave Stuff Behind:
Make sure that you don’t buy fish that is not MSC certified – otherwise that might become a type of fish that you won’t be able to eat in the future – especially if it is being over-fished!

Isn’t it better to go without it this week rather than lose it forever!

The same goes for everything really.  My local store didn’t have my usual organic, free-range medium hens eggs.  So I didn’t buy any.  Firstly, I can go back to the shop tomorrow without having starved to death overnight: and secondly, buying the less chicken-friendly alternative in the shop lets the shop manager know that I’m not really that bothered about the type of eggs I buy!

I mean, if non-organic supermarket eggs sell just as well when the organic ones have sold out – and there is a better profit margin on the non-organic ones – then they might well let the organic ones ‘run out’ more regularly knowing that it’s more important that customers have eggs than the fact that they are organic!

Don’t let supermarkets decide what you can buy – make sure you tell them what you want to buy.

5) Make Your Own Stuff:
Rather than buy processed foods from Asia, and vegetables from Africa – why not try out some new recipes and using veg you can grow in your own back garden!

Try shopping in the fresh and home baking sections only for a week.  Don’t rely on someone you don’t know making a meal for you miles from your kitchen and then sticking it in a box for you and shipping it to your nearest store!

Give it a go!