One year on…

second hand coat

We are getting together in a couple of days to discuss how we got on with one year of Living Well With Less Stuff, and I thought this would be a good opportunity to look back and think about how it’s been for me.

The easiest bit was the clothes: apart from having to replace some of what was stolen with my suitcase last March, I hardly bought any clothes at all – just underwear and one or two second-hand things. The other day I bought four items in a charity shop for £13 in total: a blue wool coat in really good condition, a lovely warm goldy-yellow wool scarf, a pink summer scarf and a summer top.

I spent a lot of money not on “stuff” but on services: massage, physiotherapy, dentistry (probably pretty high-carbon, but I need my teeth!). I feel OK about that but less OK about the next 2 bits:

Christmas presents for children!

I have six grandchildren and I will have to do better next time! If I start earlier, I might be able to find some of the lego they want on ebay instead of buying it new. As well as the main presents, which we exchange on Christmas Eve as my son-in-law is German, we have stockings for everyone on Christmas Day and that is definitely my downfall! I am getting much better at finding genuinely useful (and often Fairtrade) things in catalogues (New Internationalist, Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace) and I have even managed to get one or two second hand things as presents, but I find that much harder. (And I was ill just before Christmas when I still needed a few more little things so my husband went out and came back with those little helicopter things you see people selling in Lion Yard – you know the sort of thing I mean: the kind that only work when the demonstrator shows you how. The kids never even looked at them……) Next year I am planning to have a family discussion about this. At least other people are getting very good at giving me suitable things – useful, second-hand, edible……

Electronic gadgets

my seductive kindle

I’ve written about this before, but I am seriously considering not getting another smartphone when my iphone stops working and also abandoning my kindle when that packs in. The more I read about employment practices, tax avoidance, supply chains, rare metal depletion, carbon costs of electronic goods, the worse I feel about them. I think I do need a laptop computer (I have a 3-year-old Apple Mac that was passed on by my husband), but I could do without the kindle – I could go to the library and get second hand books instead. Originally I thought a kindle would save carbon, but now I’m not so sure, as the temptation is to buy more books online – second hand seems better. And I could definitely do without a smartphone, much as I like it. We were discussing smartphones in our book group last night, and somebody said they were definitely going to give theirs up as they thought they were addicted to it and it didn’t make them feel good.

But the good news is that I am not planning to stop now the year is up, just to have something better to report next Christmas!

Posted by Bev

Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn