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Three simple ideas: Use less resources

A simple life, not to be confused with an easy life, is defined on Wikipedia as follows:
Simple living encompasses a number of different voluntary practices to simplify one's lifestyle. These may include reducing one's possessions, generally referred to as Minimalism, or increasing self-sufficiency, for example. Simple living may be characterized by individuals being satisfied with what they have rather than want.
Last year I shared a series of posts about simple ideas for living a simple life, and I have one left to finish it off.  Here's what I posted already:

Three simple ideas - Saving money on groceries
Three simple ideas - Learning basic skills
Three simple ideas - Eating local and seasonal
Three simple ideas - Cooking from scratch
Three simple ideas - Growing your own food


Simple: consciously reduce plastic consumption
The first step is to be aware of just how much plastic you consume.  Plastic Free July is an excellent way to do this, buy collecting all your plastic waste for a month, you will be amazed at the amount you have acculuated, but you also see where you can make a difference.  The easiest way is to avoid buying products wrapped in plastic where-ever possible and creatively reuse plastic that does come into your life.



Simpler: easy energy saving in the home
Turn off lights when not in use.  Close doors, windows and curtains at night to conserve heat in winter and cold air in summer. Air dry clothes rather than using an electric clothes drier.  Turn off "stand-by" power on items like printers, DVD players, microwaves etc.  Gavin ran "The Great kW Challenge" a few years ago now and his tips for monitoring and reducing your electricity consumption are still relevant, and you can run the challenge yourself just to see how low you can go.



Simplest: take green bags or homemade bags to the supermarket (or farmers market)
The easiest change you can make is to switch to reusable bags.  Take them EVERYWHERE with you, and make a point of refusing plastic bags, once you get into the habit it is easy.  Read this hilarious post from Fiona for inspiration, and the video below from Linda, who is also passionate about reusable bags.


(go and put them in your car or bag now so you don't forget!!!)

What do you think?  Any other suggestions for reducing resource consumption?  How do you live a simple life?

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Comments

  1. Melissa French - The More With Less MomApril 16, 2015 at 7:05 AM

    I struggle to remember my bags. They're always in the car, but I almost never remember to bring them in the store. Thanks for posting. Hello from Farmgirl Friday.

    ReplyDelete

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