Lagom Lifestyle

Our Live LAGOM workshops hosted by Ikea have now come to an end, however I don't think that is the end of our LAGOM journey - as I think we are really adopting a LAGOM lifestyle.
I think when we started I hoped that I/we would make some huge changes to our environmental impact, however what has actually happened was that we had not only managed to maintain the areas that we had already been working on (cloth nappies etc.) during what turned out to be an incredibly difficult and stressful time in our personal lives, but also introducing small but ultimately lasting changes that improve the impact of our everyday lives.

Batteries - I no longer buy single use AAA/AA batteries and wherever possible have avoided purchasing anything that requires other battery types.

Cotton Buds - We have moved to no longer purchasing cotton buds that have plastic stems.

Clothes - I have greatly reduced the clothing that I am purchasing and in fact made it 6 months without purchasing any clothing for myself and only a select capsule wardrobe for my toddler.

Plants - Although I haven't been able to get my vegetable patch up and running this year, I have exchanged all of my fake houseplants with real ones - it is a start!

There are still some areas that I will be focusing on in the coming months, namely snacks and snacking. I have managed to reduce the number of individually packaged snacks that my son eats, but I could continue to reduce this further. As a family we are (slowly) moving towards eating fewer packaged and processed foods as a whole, so hopefully we will find more opportunities to reduce our packaging waste in the future.

Thank you so much to Ikea for running the workshops, I had great fun and learnt so much.

Living a LAGOM Life

The word 'Lagom' is a Swedish term for 'just enough', IKEA have had a 3 year program of the same name to encourage their staff and customers to become more sustainable and I have been lucky enough to be chosen to take part in 2018.

The participants have been challenged to work towards a sustainable new year's resolution of our choice and Ikea are very kindly working with us to provide £100 of their products to help us succeed.

I have chosen the resolution to reduce our families waste.

I am planning to do this by tackling a few different areas of our home:

Reusable Batteries - LADDA
(I was shocked when I took a quick inventory of how many items that we have use batteries). This also prevents me having to have safe storage for both new and used batteries to keep them out of my son's reach.

Food Waste
My plans for tackling this are three-fold (and two were specific goals in my 101 in 1001)
Meal Planning and better preparation
So I chose two more glass storage containers - FÖRTROLIG to add to the ones I already have, but this time small ones perfect for meal preparation and pre-chopping vegetables ready just to add to any dishes.
Growing our own, so a beautiful watering can BITTERGURKA to sit on our kitchen windowsill, a kitchen rail system SUNNERSTA to add to the side of our kitchen cabinet to grow some herbs and salad leaves for easy access. I was really lucky to come across some large grey stacking pots JORDGUBBE that have sadly been discontinued, but I chose 4 to go on our patio to grow some larger vegetables.

Unfortunately the container that I had chosen that would work best for our compostables (ÖNSKLIG - it is actually a nappy bucket, but is the perfect size and I can clip it onto a kitchen drawer while chopping/peeling lots of vegetables)was out of stock at the time of my personal shop, as were the containers that I wanted to get for my collection of weird and wonderful flours now that I am moving more towards a Paleo style diet. However that meant that I was able to purchase a rug for my front room HODDE. Although this rug does not look particularly cuddly or cosy, it actually makes a big difference to the feel of our living room and as it can be used inside/outside it is very hard-wearing and perfect for life with a toddler (I love that I can just sweep it off at the same time as the laminate flooring).

I am feeling really motivated and the batteries and food containers were put to immediate use. I will post some photos of all of my items around our home over the coming weeks.

What would your households new year's resolution be?