I’m halfway through my LiveLagom project with IKEA so I thought I would give you an update as to how I was getting on. So to recap, I am a LiveLagom (IKEA) ambassador. Lagom comes from the Swedish phrase ‘Lagom är bäst’ which translates to ‘the right amount is best’. A balance of not denying yourself what you love, whilst not taking from the planet more than you need. IKEA believe it’s an idea with the power to change the way people feel about sustainability. So as part of this myself, and the other LiveLAGOM ambassadors, are hoping to learn and push forward with making changes, and sharing those with communities all around the world.
Now I shared with you back in December the items I was planning on getting, and early in January they arrived I have quickly started using them throughout my home. I concentrated on three main areas so I will now take you though those, and talk a little about the changes and impact that they have made.
Lighting & Energy Saving
As soon as my IKEA delivering arrived, I started to change all of the bulbs in my house to LED. This was part of the project I knew would make a huge impact and one we would see straight away. All my bulbs I took down were then gifted to my family for them to use. I wanted to make sure I really did think about the process of recycling and reusing any items, and continued to be mindful about this through the Live Lagom project.
The LEDs were simple and easy to fit, I did have to buy a lot of the converters (£1 for 2) because of my existing fittings, but it all got sorted without any hitches. Now I have had my winter energy bill, so I have compared it to last year, and the small changes (listed below) I have made around the home in the last three months have made a difference.
- Washing at 30
- LEDs in all lights
- Turning off lights when not in use, talking to the children about this too
- Continuing to use HIVE and be mindful of the heating. Reducing the thermostat.
- use the Eco setting on the dishwasher
- We purchased a much more economical Fridge Freezer when ours broke down in December
- Batch cooking
My bill appears to by 15% less. Amazing for only two months!
I will keep monitoring this though, as I’m sure that this percentage will increase over time.
The impact the LED have made in terms of the quality of light has been immense. It’s a brighter whiter light. Some of the rooms in my house especially the two main ones downstairs are quite dark, and I can’t tell you what a difference this has made.
Food Storage
Now I have spoken before about how terrible I am at using left overs. Well I wanted to use this IKEA project to help me with this, and lots of other food storage issues we have in our home,
So far I have batched cooked using the amazing FÖRTROLIG a food containers which are clear glass so you can cook the items, coming also with a snap and lock lid so you can then either pop the dish in the fridge or freeze once it cooled down. I now have a freezer with veggie lasagne’s, cottage pies and curried vegetable and chickpea stews. It’s saved me time and electricity! Id there are left over from any meal I am now making sure I try to reuse them in any way I can, plenty of container and storage has made this so much easier.
I have also used various containers to store items like flour, rice even cereal. Yes they look neater (hurrah) but practically they help keep the contents fresher and away from the elements. All of this has worked brilliantly and I am so happy I reserved a large portion of the budget for this.
My daughter is cooking every week at school, and it makes me so happy to be able to give her the ingredients in containers that can be washed rather than plastic bags that need to be thrown away.
Recycling
Our recycling area was a disaster. I was trying my hardest to recycle, but we decided to go back to basics, and think again. I did some more research on local recycling, learning as much as I could, I then passed on everything relevant to my children. I wanted them to really understand the importance of it, and help me. A cheeky bonus for me, as sorting the rubbish is not one of my favourite jobs.
The only problem I had was the recycling containers we ordered didn’t fit in the cupboards I wanted to use. However in actual fact, because the are out on display I think it keeps recycling constantly in all of our minds. I just wish they were a little more appealing to look at.
So, as you can tell not only have we made changes, we are feeling those changes too now. In another two months I will share with you a little more about the results.
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