Do you remember that for the last 6 months I have been Living Lagom, with a little help from one of my favourite stores IKEA?
If not, you can catch up on my other posts :
Live Lagom : Changing the way we live
Live Lagom : An update halfway through
So in this post I wanted to both look back and make a few plans for the future.
Final results and savings
The main areas I was looking at during this project were energy, food and recycling.
Energy
We have definitely become more mindful as a family in all of these areas. First taking energy, after we changed all of our lightbulbs to LED, we sat down as a family and discussed ways in which we could save energy and we’ve tried to adopt them in our everyday living. We’ve not been perfect, but we have definitely made an impact on the energy we consume. Unfortunately we are on a different tariff for our gas and electricity, as we switched supplier to the one we were using for the same period last year. I’ve worked out that we have made a saving of 12% which means that we have saved £150.48 compared to our bills last year. That equates to over a month of free energy!
Food
I changed the way we shopped quite a lot too. I shop with Sainsbury’s and have our food delivered. I now try to always use new eco-friendly green slots.
Helping us to reduce the carbon footprint of your delivery is really easy: when we’re already delivering to someone in your area, you may find an eco time slot – marked with green van – on your booking page. Simply select a 1 hour slot to book.
I have also been on average saving £20 per week on my shopping bills. How? Well I have been so much better at using up leftovers, batch cooking and meal planning, all thanks to some of the fantastic IKEA items like FÖRTROLIG food containers. These are clear glass so you can cook your meal, then either pop the dish in the fridge or freeze once it cooled down. We also know what we have now at a glance as we are much more organised, and things are less likely to go out of date.
So we should save at least £1,000 over 12 months. I’m actually stunned it works out to this amount, but so pleased.
Recycling
We did already recycle, but the area and boxes we used were old and worn out. Getting new ones started up a new conversation as a family, and with my girls especially. They became so much more aware of everything the threw away. I think overall as a family we definitely became more mindful of waste. An example of our recycling would be the new solar lighting in our summer house, we used a shade from a recently broken lamp that had sheared off. Top marks to my husband for creating this!
What was my favourite part of the project? What could be better?
I love that we took the project and moved forward with it in other areas of our life. We got solar lighting in our summer house, something I wouldn’t have even considered before. We upgraded our dishwasher, and choose one that was incredibly eco friendly. I started to use the Eco wash setting on my washing machine, in fact I don’t think I use anything else now!
I think looking back I wished I’d have chosen more of a variety of items, especially gardening ones. I missed a trick really, as we all love growing things, but moving forward this is something I will be doing this summer even more.
Which products worked best and which didn’t?
I didn’t have any issue with the products, the lighting worked brilliant, and the quality of light (much brighter clean light) was such a bonus.
A product I didn’t really think much of, but has been amazing is the KOPPLA 3-way socket with 2 USB ports and the ROMMA, a cable management box with a lid, so nifty!
The 365 ikea storage jars with a lid have been a revelation too. No longer do I have half used cereal boxes that have been exposed to the air and gone soft. The children have really taken on board keeping them airtight, and its great visually to be able to see when I need to order more.
I think if anything the only thing that went wrong was we thought that the recycling boxes would fit in our utility room cupboard, but unfortunately they didn’t, and they aren’t that exciting to look at. I would love it if IKEA offered more variety in this area. Food storage all worked well, I ordered such a variety that I had everything covered. Some of the containers I used in other parts of my house (for example my ensuite) to help with organising. Being organised might seem like a strange thing to talk about in this project, but it helps so much to be able to see what you have so you don’t over buy.
What will you do next?
We have done lots of decluttering, we have sold items on ebay, given things to friends, and to charity, and this is something we are definitely going to continue to do. We have so much stuff still in our garage and loft. Really its been minimal effort for a huge reward. We actually have shelving and drawers which are no longer crammed full, they are organised and we know what we have, so we aren’t duplicating or wasting things. This is something I hope (know) that we will continue. If we could and the cost wasn’t so prohibitive I would install solar panels. It’s not possible now, but maybe in the future!
Who would you recommend the project to?
Anyone looking to make changes in their home and life and are sceptical.
Lucylish says
I am desperately trying to introduce some of this in my life. I’m craving zen and drowning in stuff and clutter! I picked up a few tips to start making a change, now just need the time to implement!
Nikki Thomas says
Wow you have done really well, especially the food idea. I need to try doing more of that as our food bills seem to have rocketed lately and £1000 over a year is amazing.
Jose Mari Gamboa says
We are trying to do this in our home. I don’t think overstocking the house with grocery is good since in the end it gets wasted because of the expiration. Saving energy is hard to manage because of the use of gadgets and the thermostat and all. Still thank you for sharing this i hope i can do everything from the list.
Jeric Danao says
In addition to what the above commentor just stated, we shouldn’t try hard to save energy for there are a lot of ways on how to conserve energy but switching to alternatives such as solar powered premise – that would definitely have change with regards to costs in the long run. Thank you for sharing this reference.