Live Lagom – six months of sustainable living

Six whole months of Live Lagom! The time has flown by and I can’t believe we’re already at the end of the project and it’s time for me to wrap it up {at least on the blog}. I posted at the beginning of our journey and also at the mid-way point with how we were getting on.

The Live Lagom project was designed to support us in living more sustainably, in saving money, reducing our energy usage, cutting down on our waste and upping our recycling. As a quick recap, the areas we personally chose to focus on were:

* Energy efficiency
* Reducing waste
* Recycling more
* Meal Planning
* Insulating

These were all areas that we knew what we should be doing, but for a variety of reasons, we were falling short on. Lack of time, moving house, a new baby… we’d fallen into lots of bad habits and we hoped that by taking part in this project, we’d get the kick up the butt that we needed!

What worked..

We replaced all of our light bulbs for energy saving LED ones. I’ve been really pleased with these, they are definitely worth switching too if you haven’t already. We put brighter ones in a couple of the rooms {such as the playroom and kitchen} and slightly dimmer ones in bedrooms and the living room.}

We put a new recycling station in our utility room, as well as a paper/cardboard bin upstairs. Having somewhere to sort all our waste has made a big difference, and having a bin upstairs means all the paper and cardboard waste doesn’t go in the bins as it was previously. This has also helped us reduce the amount of waste we’re making – we’ve also made sure to separate all our food waste, currently the council collect it but we’re hoping to build a compost heap this summer.

Meal planning – this helps me spend less but also waste less as I’m only buying the food we actually need each week. I’ve finally gotten back into doing this and it has made a big difference. No longer am I throwing food away that has gone off before we’ve eaten it! {It also helps save that 4 o’clock panic of ‘what shall I make for dinner tonight???}

Insulating – in a big airy house like ours, keeping the heat in is vital – otherwise our heating bills are sky high. We added new curtains and insulated liners to the back door and the living room, and they have made a big difference. The living room holds its heat much better now and stays nice and cosy, and the curtain on the back door keeps the draughts out {oh for a uPVC door!!}

While the changes we made were small [individually} added together, and I feel like they add up to making a much more sustainable life. We’ve become far more aware of how we are living, we’re more conscious of what we’re buying and the waste that we are creating. Being a part of this Live Lagom project gave us the push we needed to tackle the bad habits that we had fallen into. I’m pleased that the kids have become more aware of waste and recycling, that they understand why we recycle and why we are trying to live more sustainably.

Being a part of a big campaign like this is great for motivating you to tackle the issues that you are aware off. It’s all too easy to put it off, or to think that these little things don’t matter. If you get a chance to be a part of Live Lagom I’d highly recommend it – you can sign up to the IKEA Family for updates.