Eco Friendly House And Garden

Do you wish you could grow oranges in your garden instead of apples?

Well, you will be happy to know that there is an easy answer: do nothing.  Just continue on with what you are doing today – and your garden will be transformed!

By carrying on as usual, everyone in the UK can make sure that they will never have a patchy lawn again, no dirty pond to clean out in the winter, no leaves to sweep off the drive in autumn and all round sunshine!

How On Earth?
Well, climate change will raise our global temperatures by 2-4 degrees and most of our native plants will die out (along with most of the wildlife) and be replaced by drought-resistant plants (which don’t shed their leaves).

photo credit: a.dombrowski

Higher temperatures will mean less water – and more hosepipe bans – so your lawn won’t be able to get enough water to survive.  You will then have to replace it for a gravel or stone surface, and watch those delightful ornamental lawns disappear and large grassland fields turn to dried mud.

There will be such a demand for drinking water that fountains, ponds and lakes will either dry up or be turned into reservoirs – so all the native wetland plants and animals will have to go – as we don’t want them to pollute our drinking water supplies, do we!

It’s all part of the Earths plan though – as due to the other effects of climate change, sea level rises will mean that there will less land available for farming, housing, leisure and agriculture – so we won’t have too much of a garden to worry about anyway.  We will all live in flats or terraced housing without plants or grassy parks – think of an Egyptian or Moroccan landscape to get the idea.

Make A Change:
I know we are still hearing the advice to ‘turn of your lights’ and ‘don’t leave your appliances on stand-by’ – but we still aren’t doing it!

Honestly: out of your 10 closest friends – how many haven’t even turned down their thermostat by 1 degree?  How many still leave the tap running while cleaning their teeth?  How many still wash a half empty load of clothes?  Or a 60 degree wash?

At the moment I can safely say that I do not do any of the 4 things listed – but I know plenty of people who still do all 4.  Ironically it is the people with kids who are the worst ‘because they are too busy’ – but they should be the most interested in the future of the planet as their kids are going to be living in it!

Forget meeting associates in a pub and collecting your mail from a PO Box – get yourself a ‘hot office’.

These days sharing things is the new green alternative to buying your own everything!  Just like hiring the church hall rather than building your own one – you can hire an office space that is already where you want it – and is the right size for your needs.

These new business schemes for small businesses could really be the way forward for your green business!

The Best Space:
If you hire your own office space, you are stuck with it for the length of your lease.  Do you go for the smallest you can find, the largest you can afford or whatever you find that happens to be in the right place?

Then you are stuck with an office that it too small to grow into, a ginormous space to heat and power for just you or an odd shaped space that isn’t really ergonomic or even suits your growing needs.

photo credit: jcortell

So why not consider a scheme that allows you to choose the office size you want on a session to session basis or a scheme that allows you to have an office in the location you prefer but that will suit your needs.

Sometimes your meeting room, business lounge or mailing address can be all the difference between appearing professional or staying small!

Time Saving:
Needless to say, if you only use an office for the important meetings and conferences then you may find yourself organising your work more effectively to suit those days – and getting all your non-important work done at home on on the road.

Also a scheme that lets office space will usually also offer mail sorting and telephone services as well.  This way, someone else will be sorting and forwarding your mail and fielding all your calls – perfect for saving you time sifting through junk mail and endless customers who just want your opening hours/returns policy/prices/website address.

If someone else is doing all the basic time-consuming things for you – then you have more time to focus on the really important things for your green business.

Eco Savings:
And it’s not just time you will be saving – it will be the environmental costs of running an office you might only spend a few hours a day in.  I mean if you have rented that space and you work in that office for an average of 40 hours a week – that means there are 128 hours a week where your office will be sitting empty.

You will have to secure this unit, clean this unit, power this unit, supply water and toilets to the unit, heat and cool this unit and maybe even furnish and repair this unit – all just for you.  Your assistant will be using all their own resources too if you have one.

So thinking big – if your office block or industrial unit has 30 other small businesses in it – that all adds up to a lot of land, resources, costs and wasted time to keep you all in business.

However, 1 single office unit with these 30 businesses rotating office space to suit their needs and their working hours would save so much energy and resources.  Now add on a central reception area where all these businesses have their mail sorted and their calls answered (possibly with just 2 or 3 permanent staff) and you have saved so many resources that it might seem difficult to call your company ‘green’ if it didn’t use this service!

Conclusion:
Whether you are starting a green business or just trying to make your business more green – perhaps you should pretend that you have 30 offices to run instead of just the 1 – then see whether you are still green then.

I know everyone wants to achieve different things – but by scaling up your efforts you can see whether you would still be green if there were 30 of you doing the same thing.

We all have offices, phones, desks, windows, kettles, chairs and heating etc regardless of your business type – so thinking big can sometimes be better.

So before you sign that contract – think big!

Eco Friendly Food Has Just Got Really Tiny – And Really Crunchy!

If there was a nutritious food that you could buy in the shop, that wasn’t a cow or a pig – would you consider eating it for the sake of the planet?

Bearing in mind that meat production – especially beef – is currently one of the biggest concerns in the ‘fight’ against world hunger and deforestation (thus a curse to humanity and biodiversity!) – and then think of a way to get the same animal protein but at a much smaller environmental cost.

Below are a list of this new foods eco friendly qualities – and decide for yourself:

1) Living Space:
This food supply does not need a very large space to live in -  therefore there will be no need to leave millions of acres of land bare just to graze them – and the rainforests can stay standing!

2) Living Requirements:
This food supply comes in many different forms so can quite easily be farmed anywhere in the world without any extra requirements such as heat, specialist foods or disease resistance.

3) Food Supply:
As this food source has only minimal food requirements as an adult – there will be no need to use valuable farmland to grow food for our food (i.e.cows) to eat rather than for our people to eat directly.

4) Land Supply:
This food will not be affected by rising sea levels or other changing environments that prevent food being grown – so supply can continue to be produced regardless of the weather events.

5) Land Requirements:
Due to the way this food would be farmed – there are no specific land needs other than not too polluted or too cold.  Therefore you could use wasteland, roof space, disused factories and any salty, exhausted or otherwise useless farmland, etc.

6) Human Interest:
This food already has a successful market around the world although it has never really been a favourite of the developed world.  Millions of people around the world already eat this food almost every week and there are a whole host of recipes and uses already being used for these foods.

photo credit: waywuwei

So what am I going on about here?

Well, the UN are now starting to take the current food crisis seriously and are looking for serious solutions – and they have come up with insects.

Weight for weight; grasshoppers hold almost as much protein as ground beef, crickets are high in calcium and red ant eggs are great for carbs (and low in calories).

What if you could breed millions of insects in every town or city in just a large warehouse and feed hundreds of families nutritious food that is grown at low environmental cost and using only a fraction of the land and resources of cattle farming?

I know the thought of eating bugs doesn’t immediately appeal – but think what is in black pudding and all but the best sausages.  What is the other 40% in most hamburgers these days and even the ingredient breakdown of different cheeses doesn’t make for good reading!

Think about it.

Source: National Geographic Magazine 2010

Cucumbers contain 97% water – So why are we still growing them?

In an age where nearly 7 million people need food to eat – why are we covering vast areas of arable farmland with something that is just water coated in green skin?

Yes, it’s juicy; it’s crisp on a salad and it has long been a favourite for the dieters among us – but this last ‘positive’ fact is actually totally negative in terms of sustainable farming and the environment.

Dieters love it as it has virtually no calories – but this is exactly what makes in a terrible food for the environment.

1) Water:
It is around 97% water – which means that this plant is a thirsty one!  I would imagine that this crop need to be watered much more than many other food crops and cereals – with much of that keeping the plant itself alive rather than filling up the cucumber itself.

Needless to say – water shortages cannot happen on a cucumber farm – so the water must be ‘stolen’ from other resources; such as landscapes, wild animals, plants, remote communities and other farms downstream.

2) Calories:
This food can hardly contain any calories as there is only 3% of the fruit left after all the water has been removed – and most of that will be seeds or skin.

Needless to say – farmland is being wasted on a crop that cannot possible sustain the world!  This cucumber land – and all of its water and other fertilisers – could be growing some seriously calorie-dense crops that can fill a person tummy and give them the energy to stay alive.  A person eating only cucumbers would soon be a non-person!

3) Nutrition:
Added to just the energy deficit – there can only be useful vitamin and minerals in this remaining 3% as well – so eating cucumbers may well be great as a supplementary food to something crammed full of vitamin and minerals – but then why eat it at all?  It probably uses more calories to carry home from the store, wash it, cut it, carry it into the dining room on your plate, chew it, digest it and poop it out than you get from eating it!

Needless to say – there are probably just as many vits and minerals in a 150ml glass of tap water – and you would probably need 100 or more glasses of water from your tap to equal the amount wasted ‘growing’ the 150ml of water in a cucumber!

And I dread to think of the wasted ‘other’ energy needed to farm and transport these fruits.  Collecting seeds, propagating them, preparing the land, planting out, watering, fertilising, harvesting, sorting, transporting to warehouse, packaging, transporting to stores, displaying on shelves, transporting to your home, disposing of your waste.

There are around 10 calories in 100g of cucumber so you would have to eat 500 grams of cucumber (basically 2 whole average-sized cucumbers) just to eat enough calories to then have the equivalent energy to prepare the salad for 20 minutes in the first place (50 calories for a 140 pound person).

If you were planning to do some gentle work on your farm or allotment, you would use around 500 calories per hour – that means around 5000 grams of cucumber – so that is equivalent to more than 20 cucumbers!

Whereas you could have got the same number of calories from just 350 grams of cooked white rice (1 average portion), or only 130 grams of regular muesli (large bowl).

And all these calculations are like-for-like comparisons – and don’t even start to take into account other energy losses.

4) Humans:
With the current world food demands and rising population (with an estimated 200,000 extra mouths to feed today) it does seem rather wasteful to even consider growing this crop – not to mention all the other ‘tasty’ crops that we like to see in our stores that aren’t worth the water, calories or nutrition they take to produce.

Take the myriad of salad greens and lettuces, species of melon, rhubarb, grapes, marrow and celery to name a few, which have ridiculously high water content and painfully low nutritional values.  Shouldn’t we be weaning these out of our diets in today’s unpredictable climate?

Just like cakes and sweets – they are a ‘pleasure’ food that we eat because we can, not because we need to. 

Maybe we should treat these foods along the same lines as the concept of Meat Free Mondays (or as seriously as vegans) as they are just as wasteful to our planet as herds of cattle are.

Finally, London has put some focus on a bicycle hire scheme in the City!

Rather than focusing on trying to stop heavy traffic – they have decided to focus on promoting and supporting a cycling scheme for commuters, locals and tourists alike!

Hopefully this is the first step towards changing the way we look at cities and transport for the future – and the more of us that support the scheme – the more likely further improvements are!

Tower Bridge - London

Why Bikes?
Well, the idea behind the current scheme is to allow people to cycle around London without having the initial worry and cost of buying a new bike – and then reducing the worry of securely storing these bikes in flats and on the street.

By offering the use of secure bicycles that you can hire for a small fee – these 2 worries are eliminated – and at the same time making the streets cleaner and safer and reducing the need for increasing other resources.

Over 12,000 people have already signed up for the scheme – so that’s 12,000 bikes that haven’t had to be made!  They will all be sharing the same bikes in the scheme making great environmental sense!

And of course, it is better for the environment to have 500 bikes trundling around the streets than 50 half-empty buses.  And it’s better for the 12,000 people to be cycling themselves from A to B than to have them just sitting on a bus or tube.

Added to this – bicycles are made for 1 – whereas car hire schemes will usually leave 3 empty seats!

How It Works:
At the moment you need to sign up online to join the scheme – then you receive your ‘key’ which allows you to ride any of the bikes around the city.

There are 2 separate charges for the scheme and they are explained below.  Once you understand the difference between these, it is so simple to use.

Charge 1) Access To A Bike:
You will pay a small fee to actually free a bike up from it’s docking station, which can be as little as 12p a day if you buy an annual pass, or up to £1 a day if you pay daily.  This Access lasts a full 24 hours from release of the bike from the docking point.

Charge 2) Time-Based Hire:
You will pay a set fee for the length of time you have a bike out of a docking station.  Fees range from £1 for an hour up to £50 for the whole day (a day = a 24 hour period).  If the bike is not returned to a docking station before the 24 hour period elapses there will be a steep fine to pay!

However, less than 30 minutes on a bike (ie – from leaving 1 docking station to being secured in another docking station) if totally free!  So you only pay the Access Fee – which could be as little as 12 pence!

Needless to say that the more you use it the more cost effective it is, and using it for short distances is the key to good value.

Using it for longer bike rides might not be as cost effective as using a standard bicycle hire store – but could be more convenient.

Either way – make sure that you support the scheme in any way you can, so that the Government can see that people want less traffic on the roads, we want better pedestrian and cycling facilities and associated safety improvements – and we want greener travel improvements across the country.

If you help make London a success – it could roll out to other large cities!  Imagine all that green energy being used up on pedal-power rather than petrol!

Should you use normal plastic loads of times – or biodegradable plastic just the once?

There have been many recent developments in the plastic industry and the most controversial is the biodegradable versions that we had all waited so long for!

However, there are some unforeseen problems with these new versions – and it is a difficult eco friendly choice between them and ‘normal’ plastics.

See the 2 examples below of the 2 ways in which these plastic can be more eco friendly:

1) Buy a product in a normal plastic bottle and either re-use it forever or recycle it again and again, or;

2) Buy a product in a biodegradable plastic bottle (either HBP or OBP) that contains ingredients that will speed up its bio-degradation or turn it into compost when you dispose of it.

The 2 don’t mix!  It has to be 1 or the other!

What Does Biodegradable Mean?
If you first consider the word ‘biodegradable’ in its general meaning – it is any product (solid or liquid) that will break down naturally into environmentally safe and virtually natural products that can be used by living organisms in around 6 months.

However, there is no legal definition in terms of products in the stores – so anything claiming to be ‘biodegradable’ could be just that – or could be nothing of the sort; even if it has green pattern all over it and a picture of some wildlife on it!

So, what these biodegradable plastics are trying to do is to be better than existing plastics.  They claim that they will break down into less harmful and polluting particles relatively quickly compared to standard plastics, and so will have less of a detrimental effect on wildlife in the long term.

Don’t forget that existing plastics will also break down naturally (in the sense that if you leave a carrier bag part buried in your garden – it will eventually fall apart) but the plastic doesn’t actually disappear, it will just be in ever smaller parts.

Why Biodegradable Plastic Then?
Well, there has been an awful lot of bad press for plastic lately – what with sea turtles swallowing carrier bags and albatross feeding bits of plastic to their young – not to mention the Pacific Ocean Garbage Patch that people were looking for a way to make plastic bottles, containers and other products get a lot smaller a lot quicker.

By making a plastic that breaks down as soon as possible means that whole bottles and bags won’t be found floating in the sea killing birds and turtles any more!

Washed Up Plastic Waste

You still need to be aware of the way the products break down though to be most effective – for example the 2 types of biodegradable plastic currently available as HBP (hydro-biodegradable plastic) and OBP (oxy-biodegradable plastic).

And as their name suggests; one needs water to break down quickly and the other needs air – so bury these in bin bags in land fill sites won’t really make either of them disappear any quicker than normal plastics – but imagine they were litter in the countryside or rubbish floating in the Atlantic.

It’s a whole different story then!  They would soon disappear making our wild areas cleaner and safer for living things!

What’s The Problem Then?
We have discussed that biodegradable plastics must be the best for the environment then – as they don’t stay in the environment for ever and ever as whole plastic products – they break down fast into less harmful particles!  Right?

Well, it’s not so clear cut as you can’t recycle them. 

Adding either HBP’s or OBP’s to recycled plastic can actually be more harmful than good – as these new plastics are designed to break down – so they can actually render a recycled plastic product virtually useless in just a few months!  And many councils are actually trying to get them banned as a result!

We all know that there is only a reason to make a product if it is financially viable – so reducing the need for plastic recycling could cause an end to recycled products!

And if the biodegradable products are meant to break down – then we are actually creating a market for more and more plastic to be created.  Rather than re-use your old toiletries bottles and food containers again and again – you would have to keep buying new ones instead!

So, is the new plastic actually any more eco friendly than the old?

Teach Yourself: a practical understanding of the weather system, he says….

Basically this book explains how the weather ‘works’. By looking at the atmosphere and how the rotation of the Earth affects the movement of air, you can find out about cloud formation, severe weather events, weather forecasting and, of course, our changing climate.

And to prove it, he opens up with a very straight forward set of diagrams to show all these things in action in a normal state. Obviously he uses actual weather event examples throughout and there are colour plates in the centre to offer visual guidance.

The Book Itself:
I do love the simple nature of the majority of this book.  The way everything is explained step-by-step and there are usually pictures or diagrams to illustrate every new point he brings up.

Having a previous interest in the weather systems and of course climate change, I was already quite versed in his terminology and found I could work quickly through the facts and descriptions.

This book did base it’s main themes on weather in the area around the UK, but it used examples and weather paterns from across the globe, like monsoon weather and El Nino events. 

The Author helps to explain some of the basic cloud formations as well, which (towards the end of the book) he uses to help you identify the most likely weather to affect you in the next few hours.  By studying the shape and height of the clouds he can virtually guarantee that you will be able to spot when rain is on the way and when it should stay clear – using the very principles of cloud formation that he explained at the beginning.   Which I found quite fun and generally right!

All of this could be very useful if you are small-holding, growing your own crops, collecting rainwater, live by a stream, are out of a long hike or organising an outdoor eco event.  The weather really does affect almost everything that we do – so knowing a little about it can make a difference to our everyday lives.

He tries to avoid bringing climate change into every chapter and reserves a whole section (Chapter 10) to covering a few of the basics.  But he also saved a whole chapter (8) to how actual weather forecasts are made and prediction mathematics – which is where he lost me!  I found this section far too scientific, and if like me you have a brain that just ‘doesn’t listen’ when it finds something to complicated or that it just isn’t ready to understand yet – it gives up.  I didn’t manage to read this section all the way through – but I am sure that once I understand more about the basic weather systems, this information may become more interesting! 

I totally agree that the weather systems will continue to work as they see fit and as part of the negative and positive feedback systems – regardless of what us humans decide to do.  He has a few ‘future’ predictions based on current human activities but noone can know for sure what will happen in the next few hundred years – I’m sure the dinosaurs didn’t think that a meteor would just fall from the sky and affect their happy little lives!

Result: 5/5
Apart from the one technical chapter towards the end – I absolutely loved this book – and the introduction it gave to me about how the worlds weather is currently ‘working’.  This way I can better understand when there are changes – and also make a bit more sense of the weather forecasts on TV and weather events in general.

I loved the way towards the end that he touched on what we are doing to prepare for the future in terms or accepting that things will change.  I mean scientists are already very sure that sea levels will rise at least a few feet minimum, and global temperatures in the north will increase – so what are we going to do about it?

Are we going to carry on as normal and hope that we sort these things out, or should we start making subtle changes today – for example ‘not building any more housing in areas likely to flood from sea-level rises’?  He makes a startling statement about rising temperatures too – that in France during the 2003 heatwave over 10,000 extra deaths were recorded – and that the temperatures they experienced then could become the normal summer temperatures for that region within the next 100 years (or less).  So are we preparing for it now?

I don’t think we are.

ISBN: 978-0-340-96641-9

They are well known for their tireless work to help wetland birds – but there’s plenty more!

The RSPB Wildlife Charity based in the UK are here to protect more than just waders – they cover all sorts of wings, legs and trunks!

No, not elephants: trees, plants and whole habitats!  Saving 1 species of bird is virtually meaningless; as the birds need a place to live and feed too – so just focusing on 1 thing was never going to be a successful plan!  So they have expanded their range and set more targets for themselves.

So what are the 5 main aims of the RSPB today – other than just keeping british bird populations healthy – and how can you help then to increase their efforts!

1) Safeguarding The Sea!
We know that they are already working to protect, clean and manage inland waterways and estuarine environments – I mean, we have all been to one of their reserves – but what about the huge expanse of water along the coast and out to sea!

With the recent implementation of the Marine Act in England and Wales, they are working hard to give this environment the best protection they can as over 50% of the UK’s birds and wildlife rely on the sea for food and breeding.

However, the Act doesn’t extend to Scotland and Northern Ireland – so you could be working with them to protect these areas too.

2) Avoiding Extinctions:
By knowing which species are where in the UK, the RSPB can tell when they are in trouble and need a helping hand.  Sometimes this is just through careful monitoring, but more commonly it means taking drastic and emergency action.

Whether it’s the captive breeding of individuals, the re-introduction of others or the working in secret locations to protect small populations, they make sure that the few remaining birds have got the best chance possible to breed and rear healthy offspring.

And it’s not just in the UK that they are trying to save species, for example they have reduced the accidental deaths of 18 species of albatross by a whopping 85%.  Longline fishing around the Antarctic was killing 1000′s of these birds every year – and they hope to extend this success around the worlds other oceans.

3) Inspiring Indonesia!
Working overseas again, the RSPB is saving precious rainforest in Sumatra – aimed at the bird life but now protecting mammals, insects and amphibians too.

Providing and protecting a tropical habitat that is home to rare tigers, sun bear, monkeys and all sorts of colourful birds and other wildlife is their top priority in this region – and they hope to protect more land here and across the globe.

4) Coping With Climate Change:
They actively lobby the government on all issues they feel relevant to preventing any more climate changing activities like opening further coal-powered power stations and encouraging sustainable energy production, such as wind farms.

They arranged a hugely successful march through London last year – called The Wave – and are now asking the public to sign their ‘Letter to the Future’ so that a million voices can all tell the Government what we think our country should be doing for the Planet.

5) Countryside Fun!
What is the point in saving these habitats if nobody is going to use them?  So the RSPB work hard to make the countryside accessible for all by improving and expanding their reserves and other protected areas.

By encouraging schools and adults alike to respect and explore the Great Outdoors, they are helping to make sure that there are people in the UK today who will take care of our countryside in the future!

You can help by becoming a member for as little as £3 a month (less than the entry fee to 1 of their paying reserves) or a family from just £50 for the whole year!

Or you can offer to volunteer at a reserve near you and make a physical difference to the UK countryside and the wild places around you.

During the bright sunny weather – there are butterflies everywhere!

But what are they all called, and why does it matter?  Well, it matters because butterflies are very specific feeders and so can tell us what the health of certain plants is like – and therefore which habitats are disappearing and which ones a expanding.  And this information is vital to biodiversity and conservation.

So – how many butterflies can you identify?  Which plants have you introduced or encouraged in your garden to attract butterflies?

Well, now is your chance to learn a few more and actually use this new information to help a national survey tell us about our changing environments.

The Survey:
The Butterfly Conservation Trust and Marks & Spencer have got together to organise a very simple sample survey of your local butterflies.

Basically, all they want you to do is tally up all the butterfly species you see in your garden or on a walk in just 15 minutes.

No need to learn a billion species or any rare butterflies – just the common and most widespread species in the UK.

They have even produced a fantastic, clear and comprehensive visual identification guide to around 15 butterflies – showing both upper and lower wing patterns.  They couldn’t have made it any easier!

So could you spare a few minutes now looking through the species guide and then 15 minutes at the end of July to tally them up?  A pair of binoculars wouldn’t be a bad idea either!

Why Butterflies?
Well, butterflies are very obvious in the environment.  They don’t try to hide – infact they brandish their wings to the sun; they come out during the brightest, clearest days and they are usually brightly coloured too – with some quite striking patterns.

Small Tortoiseshell Butterfly

This means that it would be a lot easier that trying to spot night-flying moths or small mammals etc!

As mentioned before, they only feed on certain plants and only lay their eggs on certain other plants, so you can be very sure that where there are White Admirals there will be Honeysuckle and where there are Silver-Washed Fritillary there will be Dog Violet.

Therefore if there certain plant species dying off or becoming more abundant due to land-use changes or differing weather patterns – the butterflies will have to change their local habitat to make sure they and their young can feed.

And this is where the survey can tell the specialist and awful lot!  The information for just our garden might not really tell us anything – but add that up between all the survey results and the picture will become much clearer.

So the more people who can spare 15 minutes of their time – the more definitive the results will be, and the more action can be taken to make sure we don’t lose butterflies from our gardens – and don’t lose entire habitats because we didn’t care to look!

So, go get your suncream and a pen!

We bulk buy products to be eco friendly – so does a bigger house give the same benefits?

We’ll not if you are just a single person or a couple – but what if you involved the whole family or some friends?  And I don’t mean join some commune or hippy campsite – although they are both options for some people.

What I am talking about is a great idea for saving energy, combining skills and resources as well as improving everything else ‘in bulk’.  So how about it?

The Theory:
I would love to live in a large home surrounded by land – but I know this would be a bit selfish in the overall scheme of things – so how about a compromise?

How about planning to live in a house with other people, whether they be my mum or sibling – or even friends – And it doesn’t need to be as bad as it sounds: you would plan to buy a property that still allowed you your privacy, for example a 3 story town house, divided into 2 sections or a detached property with a ‘granny annexe’ as part of it.

This way, you can pool resources too, like a joint investment in a garden allotment, solar panels, wildlife garden etc, as not only will you have more combined finances with this arrangement – you will also have a larger amount of space to work with.

2 couples living in townhouses may only have a small courtyard garden and a thin sliver of the terraced roof – but combine those 2 mortgages or using a larger deposit could mean you are able to buy detached, with more garden, off road parking, fruit trees, a larger roof and less overheads: only 1 TV license, one Council Tax, lower energy costs (the first so-many units are higher priced), lower food costs (buying in bulk), the list goes on……

It has all the same advantages as buying a 2 litre bottle of shampoo rather than 4x500ml bottles – but on a much larger scale!

Other Benefits:
For starters, all the maintenance costs will be shared between you all, insurance bills and repairs will all be halved – so more money to spend on green investments.

The security of your home will be increased as when you are away, the other people will probably still be around – and the animals and plants can carry on growing while you are busy.

Magazine subscriptions can be shared, and days out can be treated as ‘family’ tickets as there will always be enough people to make up the numbers! Less cars even, depending on your situation – and more shared journeys – or less journeys even; well if you are going to the store – then your flatmates don’t need to!

Food should never go out of date if there are twice as many people around to eat it – and if you ook together then imagine the energy savings!  And there will always be enough dirty dishes to fill the machine – and clothes for a full wash!

And can you imagine how great it would be for the kids to grow up in a friendly environment where they can learn skills from all the people around them, and live in an house with a bit of character and a large garden with chickens in it!

Sounds perfect – I just need to find some similar-minded friends…………