Getting back into simple

So it took me longer than planned to write my next blogpost!

It sounds odd, but I rather fell out of simple living for a while. I felt the urge to put expensive goo on my face instead of homemade, and to buy trashy magazines.

I think on reflection I was trying to do too much too fast. I was determined to make my own clothes intead of buying them, but it's quite a leap from the occasional pair of pajama bottoms to a full-on professional wardrobe. After making do and mending most admirably for some time, the combination of January sales and impending new job had me running to the shops.

Not all bad, of course. I'm making it sound as if I blew a year's buget in a week. I bought clothes - but still relatively sensibly. Building on my experience with Project 333, I bought items that can be worn at work, home or socially, in a limited range of colours, in simple styles that will age well and that work well with my existing clothes.

But somehow it all fell off together. The clothes, the face cream, the make-up. The house uncleaned, the yoghurt unfermented, quilt unquilted, the blog unloved.

The last week or so I have found myself turning back to simple. It should not surprise me, but it does: I felt an almost immediate relaxing of a knot of tension I had not noticed as soon as I started revisiting my old inspirations, picking up my knitting, and caring better for the home around me.

So how do you get (back) into simple living? Here are my favourites.

1. Seek simple living inspiration

Browse blogs, books, tv programmes etc that encourage you to slow down and illustrate all the cool things you can do. Try here or here or here.

2. Make the bed

So simple. Makes the room look and feel tidier, starts you towards a morning routine, and makes you feel productive before you even change out of your pjs.

3. Have a clear-out

Decluttering always makes you feel lighter and better able to breath, somehow.

What about you, what are your favourite ways to find the simple rhythm again after a break?

The Zero Waste Home

This post is part of a series on homes that inspire me, as part of mulling over what my dream house looks like and to help motivate my decluttering. 1: A cob bungalow | 2: The woodsman's cottage | 3: A minimalist cabin | 4: A narrowboat | 5: The tiny appartment | 6: The crafty home | 7: The Burrow

I've not come across a reference to a 'no waste home' before, but the concept is fairly self-explanatory. Bea and her family generate (almost) no waste. This is the total amount of waste thrown in the bin in their house in 2014:

So you may wonder what kind of house they live in, and what their lifestyle looks like. Is it hard work? 

My first thought was of my uncle who, according to family legend, once lived a year without throwing anything away. He just piled the trash under his bed instead. 

So is there home cluttered, chaotic?

Oh no. It's beautifully minimalist. The zero waste mentality also means thinking carefully about everything you bring into your home, and living a very decluttered lifestyle. Bea focuses on five tenets: firstly, refuse things you don't need or which are wasteful, for example free disposable pens. Secondly, reduce what you do use. Thirdly, reuse what you have used before you move on to the fourth step, recycle. Then the rest is rotted down in the compost.

To cut out food packaging, and packaging in general, Bea buys in bulk. And it looks so beautiful.

If you're tempted to have a go at buying bulk, Bea has developed an app (called, logically enough, 'Bulk') which helps you locate and rate shops near you that sell in bulk.

Her archives make for interesting reading, on how she manages to take her zero waste philosophy on holiday with her, and inform her kids on why this matters, and the advantages that down-sizing her home, possessions and consumption have brought.

She's also got a book out, which is definitely going to be in my letter to Santa Claus. You can read an excerpt here. In the meantime, the blog has given me plenty of food for thought. I've started tracking what I throw away in the same way I track my expenses, and on the basis of that I am thinking about how I can reduce my waste.

Sunday reading

Hello all! I've not been around much, it's been a rather hectic month. I shall be back at greater length in December because I have three weeks off over Christmas! (Yes! So looking forward to having a decent break.)

In the meantime, please enjoy:

10 Things I Gained When I Gave Up All My Stuff 
The First 5 Most Frustrating Things About Simplicity (plus solutions) 
You don’t need whiskers to do that.
Giving: Fewer gifts, more thought
Introducing the 2014 Unclutterer Holiday Gift Giving Guide 
How to Make a Dish Towel Apron

My favourite apps for simple living

Simple living and smartphones aren't exactly ideal bedfellows. We're all trying to reduce the amount of stuff we own, to opt out from the need to keep up with fashion and technology trends, and to disconnect more. Being able to connect to your work emails through your phone 24/7 is not quite conducive to this.

But I am trying to reconcile my work life with my simple living philosophy, and unfortunately right now a smartphone is an essential tool for my work. 

So how can I turn the smartphone from a disruption of simple living to an enabler? Can my phone help me to slow down?

I've found a few apps and functions which I find great for this, so here they are. 

 1. Podcasts

There are various podcast apps, so pick the best for your platform. There are podcasts out there about anything - I can now use my walk to or from work or a lunchtime walk to learn something new, and/or to connect with someone else's simple living experiences.

2. Finance trackers

Again, several models out there. I'm using Toshl because it's free, but the basic principle is to track all your expenditure and see immediately how much of your budget is left. If you pay for an upgrade you can manage several budgets at once but I'm cheap, so I am just using this to track one kind of expenditure - the one I am struggling most to contain.

3. Bulk

Bulk is an app developed by Bea over at Zero Waste Home (which should totally check out if you don't know it). It picks up on your location and gives you a list of shops in your area which offer products in bulk, so you can cut out packaging. The shops are rated by other app users so you can see which are best for dry goods, which for fruit, which for oils and lotions... I'm dead impressed because it's got loads for Brussels!

 

Disclaimer: I am not in any way affiliated with any of these app's developers nor am I making any money from this post.

Why I love my wardrobe

If you had told fifteen-year-old me that I would love love love my wardrobe, I would not have believed you. I hated shopping, hated fashion, and generally wore whatever came to hand first - usually a block-coloured v-neck sweater and a dark pair of trousers.

If you had told me even a year ago that I would love my wardrobe, I would not have believed you. I still hated shopping, hated fashion, and still wore whatever came to hand first - usually a block-coloured v-neck sweater and a dark pair of trousers.

In January this year, I started something called Project 333. The basic rule involves limiting the number of clothes, shoes, accessories etc to 33 items for 3 months. I told a few people I was planning to have a go at this, and they thought I was bonkers.

The core of the challenge is to limit the number of clothes, shoes etc that you wear for a period of time. The original challenge is 33 items of clothes, shoes, outerwear and accessories for 3 months, but you can set your own challenge. I exclude scarves, coats, belts and jewellery.

Ten months in, I still hate shopping and fashion - but I no longer pull on the first thing that comes to hand in the morning. A number of people have commented that I look smarter. I wear a greater variety of clothes, styles, colours and combinations than before. Despite having fewer clothes in my wardrobe.

I am more aware of how I present myself, and I take better care of my clothes and shoes. When I get dressed, or set out items for the next day, I think about a variety within the outfit and through the week. I do less laundry than before - although I do have to be more organised so I don't run out of things!

I think not just about a garment but about its function within the wardrobe, which helps me when I do make rare purchases or when I plan to make clothes. (Still largely at the planning stage...) This has transferred across to other things I own - I look for duplicates not just in type or appearance but also in function, which helps with decluttering elsewhere.

I have also given away several bags of clothes to charity, so that the clothes not included in my 33 almost fit into one suitcase, where before they filled two. I have emptied a huge box of old clothes, and either donated them or turned them into cleaning cloths. I would have done this earlier if I had realised that cotton t-shirts make marvellous dusters.

When I open the wardrobe in the morning, I am greeted by bright, clean clothes neatly arranged. It welcomes me home at the end of the day, a reminder that order has a place in my cluttered life. I am a total convert and will not be returning to my old arrangement. Which would you prefer?

To anyone thinking of trying this challenge, go for it!!! You can find out more on the Project 333 website.

Saving energy, saving money

We recently received our annual summary of the communal charges for the building. This includes our annual heating and water bill. We pay a monthly sum to the building managers, and at the end of the year they read the meters and send an invoice to settle the bill.

This year, we're due to get almost €1000 back.

It's a good feeling when you open that envelope. We were similarly delighted last year when our electricity supplier cut our monthly bill by two thirds because we were consuming less than they had expected.

Saving energy and water is good for the planet and good for the pocket. The annual heating and water bills have prompted me to think again about how much we use - partly because I'm genuinely surprised about how we've saved so much, and partly because I think we could probably do even better.

I've noticed recently that we've got into the habit of having only one light on in the flat. When we curl up on the sofa in the evenings, one uplighter is enough, and we don't even turn on the main light for the room. I'm not sure when we started doing this, really. I suspect my dad ("Were you born in a power station?") and my boyfriend ("Are you sleeping with the owner of Gazprom?") are finally getting through and I now turn lights off when I leave the room. And they're energy-efficient bulbs. Booya.

All the appliances we've bought have been energy (and in the case of the washing machine, water) efficient. I think the easiest trick is not to own as many. I've been reading tips on saving water and energy online, and am boggled by some of the tips. Get rid of the second fridge? Who are these people?

We don't own a dishwasher or tumble drier. Or a second fridge. I'm not giving up the washing machine, though. Don't even think it.

For heating, we use the fabulous insulating power of curtains, which insulate the room brilliantly. We have full-length wall to wall curtains on both external walls with two layers (blackout lining for the bedrooms, a separate net curtain for privacy for the living room. We also use 'passive solar' - I open the curtains for the east-facing window each morning and allow the sun to warm the room, and then close the curtains when I get back after work. 

 

Since our curtains have gone up last spring, we have only turned on the heating three times - when we had visitors. We turned on the radiator in the spare room for a few hours each time - and were told the room was too hot. The rear wall has just had another few inches of insulation stuck on the back of it too, so I don't think we'll be turning the heating on at all this winter. Sometimes it gets a bit chilly but that makes it all the nicer to snuggle up under a blanket with a hot cocoa. My top tip if you're cold is to go for a run or walk outside - the apartment will feel lovely and warm when you get back.

While we have installed low-flow tap heads in the bathroom and reduced the water level in the toilet tank to reduce our water usage, there are plenty more savings to be made here. I never remember to turn the tap off while I brush my teeth, I enjoy long showers, I wash dishes with the tap running and I never think to re-use water from washing or cooking vegetables on the plants. 

As a side note, I have seen analyses that suggest that dishwashers are more efficient in water usage than handwashing, but when you take into consideration the electricity used by the machine, and particularly the energy and resources tied up in its manufacture and disposal, I plump for handwashing. Plus that gives me more space in the kitchen.

There's some really good tips for those who are interested in saving energy and water over at the Energy Saving Trust. 

How about you? Where do you save energy, and where do you want to do more?

Frugal brewing

Making things yourself saves you money - some of the time. To be honest, if you buy a pattern and good quality fabric to make a dress, it ends up being more expensive than something from a cheap shop. Better quality, and better value for money, but more expensive upfront.

When we started brewing our own beer, I thought it would be the same. A fun activity that gets us off the sofa, a new skill, and one that would over time save us money but would be more expensive for the first years.

Not so. We have just bottled our second batch of beer, and my boyfriend has kept rigorous records of everything we have bought - ingredients, equipment, bottles... Our beer currently works out at €2,25 per 33cl bottle. Which is already cheaper than craft beer in the stops. I am very pleasantly surprise to find that our homemade beer so, well, frugal.

We are finding more ways to make homebrewing more frugal. Re-using the bottles from beer we drink, rather than buying bottles. Did you know you can 'wash' yeast after a brew and re-use it for a total of up to ten batches? And now I find myself with a bowl full of hops - with the most delicious smell. I can't bear to just chuck them in the bin, they smell amazing. Reuses for hops, anyone? I'm thinking to try them out and make a sleep-inducing herb pillow or pot pourri for the bedroom.