Simple Living - The Year's End

Near the beginning of the year, I wrote about my frustration with my attachment with stuff. I wanted to live more simply and feel more fulfilled by life and not things. In July, I started reading about how our consumer-driven lifestyle is affecting people and and planet, and I became convinced that I wanted to change even more in my life. When I talked with Matthew about what I was reading and thinking, he supported me and began helping me to make all of these changes. This post is an attempt to compile a list of changes that we made just since this July.

Attitude

We:

• Have decided to change!
• Spend time reading and researching about what's happening in our world and to our world
• Became committed to supporting local farmers and fair trade supporters

Food

We:

• Budgeted more for food so that we could buy as much local, organic, fair-trade, etc. food as possible
• Buy all organic produce
• Buy most other products organic
• Pay attention to where products are created, and buy as locally as possible
• Eat only about a pound of meat a month - chicken or turkey products
• Make even more food from scratch - bread, bagels, crackers, etc
• Grow a little bit of food - sprouts and basil for now...
• Make our own yogurt

Consumerism

We:

• Buy even less than we did before
• Buy anything possible used
• Do research about companies before buying their products
• Try to buy quality, ethically made goods that will last
• Started buying almost all used clothing

Household

We:

• Make sure to unplug cords when things are in use
• Turn off power strips for our computers and their accessories at night
• Cut the top off of a milk jug and now use it for a garbage pail which saves lots of garbage bags
• Started to make many of our soaps, shampoos, lotions, etc out of simple ingredients to cut down on chemicals and packaging
• Sorted through possessions that weren't being used and gave many things away
• Wash laundry with cold water and line dry it when the weather allows
• Use environmentally friendly detergent and cleaning supplies
• I also sewed and started using cloth pads. (Sorry if this is TMI!)
• Started using something close to the "if it's yellow, let it mellow" philosophy (Again, TMI?!)
• Made cloth bulk/produce bags to start replacing plastic ones as they wear out
• Try to find reusable solutions to as many disposable products as possible
• Saved glass jars to use as food storage containers

Transportation

We:

• Avoid using our personal car. It generally gets used to drive out of town.
• Use our bikes and feet a lot!
• Use the public bus

Other

We:

• Try our best to give gifts that people need and will use
• Joined the First Alternative Co-op in Corvallis
• Made a recycling box for my office since there was no recycling option in place
• Learned about danger of plastic and began to try to reduce plastic use and waste

I am sure that I have forgotten some things that we have done to change, but this is a pretty good list! I want to close by saying that making these changes has honestly not brought hardship to us. It has really been an exciting, fun, and rewarding year. I feel like I understand my world better as a result, and I feel like I am living more purposefully and loving more thoroughly. I look forward to making more changes as life continues.

I hope that you can look back on 2010 with satisfaction and that, regardless, 2011 is a wonderful year for you!