If you follow me on Instagram, you might have seen the occasional photo or Instastory of my beloved gratitude jar that I have been working on for the past few months. It is a wonderful way of cultivating a positive outlook on your everyday life, and I have been meaning to write about all the benefits it provides for some time now.
When I was growing up in England, I ate virtually the same thing for breakfast every day for years on end: Raisin Wheats cereal with ice-cold milk. They were little pockets of crunchy wheat fibres filled with raisins (no surprises there) that got nice and chewy when mixed with milk. I was a picky eater as a child so I have no idea how anyone got me to eat raisins in the first place, but they ended up being my main source of fruity goodness for years to come.
Today’s article is a little different than usual… Last weekend, I recorded my very first Youtube video (in French) to show you my groceries and tell you what I intend to do with the food I bought. For those of you who speak French, I hope you’ll find the contents interesting! I hope to create some other videos in English very soon.
A few months ago, I published this article on the eco-friendly beauty and hygiene products I was using to cut back on waste and packaging in the bathroom. Since then, I have discovered a few new ideas that I have decided to share with you today!
I love settling into the couch and watching my favourite TV show just as much as the next person. Over the last few years, I have watched (and watched and watched) many stories unfold over a few too many seasons, such as How I Met Your Mother, Big Bang Theory, Friends or Gilmore Girls, just to name a few!
But a few months ago, I realised that it was just no longer worth it. I was wasting so much time catching up on stories and characters I didn’t even like that much anymore. If you guesstimate that an average person watches 2 40-minute TV show episodes every evening during the week, that adds up to 6 hours and 40 minutes a week and 26 hours and 20 minutes every month!
I recently read several books on the zero waste lifestyle and was motivated to try a few new eco-friendly habits like buying my groceries in bulk. I do not see myself never buying pre-packaged food ever again, but I was intrigued by the idea of buying more of my food in bulk in order to reduce waste and spend less money on useless packaging!
I already had a few light cotton bags for buying fruit, vegetables and dry pasta or rice at ordinary stores, but I wasn’t sure how to take it a step further. Then, one of my friends told me about the Day by Day shops that sell all of their products in bulk. I just had to try it out!
If you read my articles about reducing waste about the house and in the bathroom in particular, you’ll have realised that I have been trying to cut back on unnecessary packaging and disposable items in general. It is quite a time-consuming process because of the research involved and the time required to try out each alternative solution.
I have not managed to completely banish plastic or even disposable products from my day-to-day life but I am very happy with the progress I have made. I am looking forward to taking it a step further in 2017!
With this in mind, I wanted to make sure I didn’t forget the planet when buying my Christmas gifts this year.
At this time of year, there are a LOT of articles on the Internet with lists of Christmas presents for different types of people. I am happy to have managed to get almost everything done already as I loathe going shopping in December… But I also wanted to have enough time to select gifts that wouldn’t be (too) bad for the environment.
So today I wanted to make my own list of eco-friendly and/or long-term presents for Christmas this year. Some of these ideas are not clearly marketed as environmentally-friendly. However, as they are products that will last or on the contrary be used up and recycled, I feel like they are more reasonable than yet another “disposable” gift that will be forgotten come January.
