My No-Buy July: A Belated Write-Up

July, it seemed, was a good month for those of us trying to buy less stuff. Frugalwoods was running the Uber Frugal Month (I've signed up for this so many times that I've memorised the emails, yet I still don't invest, and I haven't yet trusted myself with a credit card. Maybe next year. Why do I feel like there's this whole arena of adulthood associated with these kinds of financial decisions that I somehow don't feel ready for yet?). I also discovered a YouTuber, Christina Mychas, who was running a No-Buy July support group by email, and also has a Facebook group, Low Buy Beauties.

In July, our annual trip to Pembrokeshire was so close that I could almost smell the sea, and we were also starting to get excited about our trip to Shetland in October. Dai booked the overnight ferry at the beginning of July, and I was starting to realise, with considerable discomfort, that a 'big' holiday (we originally booked it to fall between my 30th birthday and Dai's 40th, but had to push it back a year due to covid uncertainties) would be something we could do far more regularly if I stopped spending so much money on other things.

My finances weren't looking great following my trip to Brighton with Alice. I hadn't emptied my piggy bank, but as a carer I'm on a low income, and it takes a while for the coffers to refill. I wasn't intending to spend a lot on either holiday, but it did remind me that it was time to have a look at how I was doing with my budgets.

Well, it wasn't good. When I added up the columns of numbers in the back of my journal, I learned that, seven months into the year, I was already over the budgets I'd set myself for cosmetics, books, and clothes. Clothing was the worst category - I'd nearly spent twice my annual budget, which meant, terrifyingly, that in seven months I'd nearly spent the same amount I spent throughout the whole of 2021. Not. Good. At all.

It was time for a bit of triage. I was on the waiting list for a commission from a slow fashion artisan I'd been admiring online for some time, and I contacted her to say I couldn't afford the piece right now, and would it be all right for me to get in touch in a few more months and go back on the bottom of the waiting list then. She was amazingly nice about it, and actually said that when I get back in touch I won't have to wait again, which was so kind. I also had a tattoo appointment booked in early September for a new large design on my left arm, but I knew I couldn't justify another three-figure spend, so I contacted my tattooist and cancelled the appointment. I did not enjoy doing these things, but I also would not have enjoyed finishing up the year with no cash cushion left in my account. The modern wisdom is 'treat yo'self', but without limits my spending was spiralling out of my control. Better to wait until I could afford these things without risk of crippling myself financially.

I was also still plugging away with Flylady, and our small house was looking so much better. Partly because it was cleaner (!), but also because we didn't have so much stuff squeezed where it didn't really fit. But then, reading back through my journal, I was quite alarmed to discover that apparently I had also had a 'big declutter' back in February. By July, I couldn't see the difference or remember a single thing I had gotten rid of only a few months ago, which freaked me out a bit! I took a quick inventory of my wardrobe, and was interested to find that my 63 t-shirts (as inventoried in 2019) had been reduced to a much more storage-space-friendly 25, yet even when I wracked my brain I could only think of five or six I had given to friends or donated. Where did the other 30-odd come from, and where did they go?!

This experience really confirmed to me that I am still not quite the mindful shopper I had convinced myself I was. I could do with being a lot stricter on myself when it comes to spending, and I think I'm doing the right thing by trying to get the most out of the items that I have so I don't constantly feel like I have to be seeking something more. It's a bit worrisome that so many pieces are still kind of just passing through - I do shop mainly second-hand nowadays, and I get a lot given to me from friends' clearouts, but if I don't want to be decluttering eternally I need to be MUCH more ruthless about what I bring into the house.

I decided to follow Mint Notion's Shop Your Closet challenge throughout July. It would challenge my ingrained consumer mindset - I'd noticed that when I picture myself doing this or that in the future, I imagine a fantasy wardrobe for myself and start planning what to buy, rather than figuring out appropriate outfits from the abundance I have already!

Week One

An easy week, shopping-wise. No temptations, no slips, no mistakes. I noticed that my usage of Instagram and Pinterest fell dramatically throughout the course of the week, which made me wonder how much the 'inspiration' I'm seeking actually translates to 'the next thing to buy'. 

This was also the week I had the brainwave of rearranging my clothes instead of decluttering any further. My winter gear was put away in under bed storage, and I moved my socks and bras from a drawer in my wardrobe into a small crate that sits in the wardrobe itself. Then I had enough room to vanquish the last of those plastic crates that have been living scattered around our bedroom. It's a great feeling and the room feels and looks so much better.

(Actually there are still a couple of boxes on my side of the bedroom. Those are my 'maybe' boxes, where I'm keeping those last few pieces that I haven't decided whether or not to let go of. Traditional wisdom holds that you should seal your maybe boxes and put them away for a few months, after which time you can declutter them guilt-free, but after reminding myself that I'm an aspiring environmentalist, not an aspiring minimalist, first and foremost, I've left the boxes open so that I can mix my maybe items into my outfits. Some of those items will still have to go - they just don't fit and aren't comfortable. Others might have ended up in the boxes simply because I was desperate to get rid of something, anything, to edge closer to the mythical capsule wardrobe of my fantasy self, and they might deserve another chance.)

I watched a lot more YouTube than usual during this week - I found that it kept me feeling positive about the challenge to hear from others who were doing/are doing a no-buy - it reminded me that I'm doing this to have more money for other things; that I'm not making a sacrifice, just changing my priorities. (I've linked some of my favourite videos at the bottom of this post, as well as some articles that kept me fired up!)

Week Two

Now that things were tidy and manageable I found myself quite naturally focusing on things other than my wardrobe. I'd been enjoying the Shop Your Closet challenge as it has encouraged me to try new combinations and wear those items that didn't see the light of day as much, but I now found myself deviating from the suggested outfits as I had so many ideas for combinations I wanted to try. But after getting dressed in the mornings, I noticed that I wasn't really thinking at all about clothes.

Instead I was cooking more and making some of our household staples from scratch (armed with The Planet-Friendly Kitchen by Karen Edwards). It was too hot to go out or do anything very active, but I made some headway into my To Be Read pile. I made some cash selling a few of my unwanted things through Facebook Marketplace, and I started getting up early to beat the heat so that I could start again with my yoga practice - I have an annoying tendency to stick with it just long enough to notice my strength and flexibility increasing, then slack off long enough to stiffen up again. Much like I do with shopping bans, actually! But not this time, I hope.

What I do with my time when I'm not on a shopping ban baffles me. Surely I can't just be spending hours a day browsing? I thought I'd broken that habit. And yet I suddenly seemed to have a lot more opportunity to do the things I was always too busy for. Odd!

Week Three

I really wasn't sure if I wanted to admit to this on the internet, but I had a horrible moment where I found myself crying behind my sunglasses on a busy high street because I felt horrendously self-conscious and ugly in my summer clothes. In hindsight I think the book I'd been reading that weekend had been a bit triggering for those faint eating disordered thoughts that sometimes still crop up in the back of my brain, and I was feeling a bit vulnerable. I just couldn't think of how to help myself past these painful feelings without either shopping or dieting, but I knew that neither would be helpful, especially not as a knee-jerk response.

I did eventually decide that I probably needed a bit of indulgence and self-care time, a morning routine that wasn't a quick wash-and-go, maybe even a bit of lipstick and a pair of high heels. I've mentioned before that I keep trying to do without 'frivolous style and beauty stuff' in the name of, I dunno, dedicating myself to being a more serious eco warrior (or something like that), and it has helped to see that my favourite sustainability influencers clearly love clothes and make-up and generally looking nice. This overload of crappy feelings really brought home to me that I actually need to carve out that time in my morning routine to let myself feel good about myself. 

I'm wary of coming to depend on make-up to feel acceptable like I did when I was younger, so I'm going to try not to overdo it but instead to find a balance. 

Week Four

Speaking of balance, I know that I've already spent too much in my 'problem' categories this year, so going forward I really don't want to spend too much more in 2022. But this week I started to have some some wobbles about what my next steps are going to be. Realistically, I don't know if a year without shopping is ever going to be a thing for me, and sometimes I wonder if that's even a sensible thing to aim for - this blog post about choosing low-buy over no-buy came into my orbit this week, and the writer makes a good case. 

Although I feel like 'giving myself a gift' every week might be a bit excessive and would definitely push those big holidays further out of reach, I can certainly see that, say, a monthly treat like a new face mask or a book or whatever could actually be really uplifting. But when I tried a low-buy year before, it went horribly wrong! Maybe now that I'm not shopping online so much, I could do it? Being able to still shop somewhat would also mean I could do some thrifting, which I have been keen to do more since I started watching Gittemary's channel.

I have actually started planning another trip with Alice for a few months' time - we're going to take the train to London in January or February, and we're planning to visit the flagship Waterstones bookstore in Piccadilly and browse the shops in Soho, as well as a bit of sightseeing. There's approximately a 0% chance that I will come home empty-handed after noodling around Beyond Retro, and I'm trying to channel my inner Gittemary and not feel guilty as long as the shopping is sustainable and doesn't bust my budget. The thing is that I still kind of want to be this hardline frugal mindful simplicity guru who doesn't care about style, doesn't go nuts for new zero waste and vegan skin care products, doesn't adore clothes, doesn't enjoy shopping as an activity, doesn't like going to the spa - but I'm not that person and I do love all of those things. I feel like it undermines my anticonsumerist Druid credibility, but I can't change myself - I have tried!

I can't decide if my end goal is to quit shopping altogether (except replacement items and the things I need to live!) or just to give it less overall room in my life, an occasional enjoyable activity rather than a complete obsession. People who've done a no-buy year tend to rave about it as life-changing, and I kind of want some of that! But I also want to not always be punishing myself...

This post is getting super long, but at the very tail end of July I went with Dai and the Spud to Valhalla Viking Festival, which I'll talk a bit more about in another post for the sake of brevity. But suffice to say I completed my no-buy successfully despite delicious temptations abounding. It was helpful to remind myself that there will always be something else to want, and I won't actually miss or regret the items I don't buy.

Inspiration:

Quit Fast Fashion in Your Twenties (applicable for any age, and funny as well as lots of smart advice on how to generally shop better!)

I stopped buying clothes and found my personal style

Zero Waste Without Minimalism? 

Un-Fashioning the Future

How I Overcame My Shopping Addiction

No-Buy: A Weekend in Glastonbury

Hey guys! I'm feeling pretty positive on this current incarnation of my shopping ban, and I've surprised myself a couple of times so far.

My first weekend on the shopping ban was actually a really big challenge, as we spent two nights in Glastonbury, which is chock full of temptation for me. When we originally planned the trip I confess I'd been looking forward to a Glastonbury visit with no shopping ban in place, but as the time came closer I could feel myself getting worried and uncomfortable. The thing is, I've been on so many big blow-out spending sprees over the years, I know what the aftermath is like, how long it takes me to get back on my feet financially if I overdo it, how guilty I feel having to shovel everything in my wardrobe to one side to make room for new. The high doesn't last. The repercussions do. 

All that said, there was of course still a part of me that wanted to shop. It's the same part of me who compares myself to other people, who wants to be noticed for the way I dress, for whom no wardrobe ever feels like enough because there's always this underlying sense of lack. But I know now that if I stop shopping for long enough, that feeling of something missing mysteriously dwindles away. It's imaginary.

I rocked up at Glastonbury's big Medieval Fayre feeling trepidatious. In all honesty I hadn't been able to decide how I wanted to handle this, and I spent the first hour or so on tenterhooks, waiting to feel those pangs of want!, for my contactless card to start flashing about. But that's not how it went. I looked at everything on the market. There was a necklace I liked. I couldn't afford it, so I didn't buy it. I had a cup of nettle cordial. It was pale pink and delicious. I started to relax.

We watched a joust. Dai tried his hand at axe throwing. We sampled lots of free mead. I was so bowled over by my absolute lack of desire to buy all the things that I ended up almost in a daze. Eventually I bought a blackberry lip balm for £3 and had two sparkly hair extensions put in for £1 each. Perhaps it would be more impressive if I'd stuck absolutely and totally to the letter of the ban, but I really feel like this was a big achievement for me and I'm happy with it. It didn't even take a huge massive effort not to buy piles of clothes and accessories. It didn't feel like any kind of sacrifice at all.

The people-watching, which is always on another level in Glastonbury, reminded me that I do love beautiful things and unique styles. But ironically, hiking backwards and forwards across town carrying a tired three-year-old also reminded me why I like to keep my look fairly low maintenance nowadays. I'm not afraid to try new looks and get a bit weird with it - my makeup over the weekend ranged from the full face with flicky eyeliner to nothing whatsoever to smearing some bio-glitter under my eyes and calling it a day - but I'm tired of worrying about what other people think of me. If I want to wear an antlered headdress or a flower crown then I will - but at other times I'm a shoeless scruff with mud under my nails or salt in my hair, and it's hardly photogenic but I'm done competing for the Best Dressed Weirdo Imaginary Award.

On our last day we took a walk around the shops. I love seeing displays and all the unusual things for sale, I'm still not the perfect anti-consumerist, but in all honesty there wasn't much I actually wanted to buy. I got some new candles for my altar and three books. Again, not perfect in ban terms, but for a whole day spent walking around shops filled with my every woo-woo hippie desire, I decided to cut myself some slack. Mostly I just enjoyed the sunshine and walking around with the Spud, watching the people and smelling the incense. It's quite nice that my days out no longer come with the sickly desperate feeling that accompanies spending hundreds of pounds on a whim. I'm so proud of myself for not buying clothes, I can't even tell you. (However, I am now over the book budget I set myself at the beginning of the year, so it'll be cold turkey for me from this point onwards!) 

A sidenote: I didn't actually tell Dai that I was doing another shopping ban, which I guess is a bit weird of me. I think where historically I have failed a lot at these things I wanted to see if I was going to actually stick to it before making any grand announcements. And sometimes it's easier to crack on with things if people aren't watching you and analysing your odd behaviour. Plus, around the time I started this ban I was also transitioning to vegetarianism, which had kind of unsettled Dai, as we have previously enjoyed his roast dinners or steaks together on many an evening. I suppose I didn't want him to think I was gratuitously punishing myself. (As an adult I've mainly been vegetarian or vegan; when my last long-term relationship ended I also started eating meat (several close friendships also blew up in a big way around this time - in hindsight it was possibly some kind of breakdown, let's gently gloss over that), and was still doing so when I met Dai. But I'm not comfortable with it for ethical and environmental reasons and it feels like a weight off my shoulders to just not. Dai worries about this because of my history with disordered eating, but I don't connect vegetarianism with disordered eating at all, it's not about weight or restriction in any way for me, I just don't want to eat animals.)

Overall throughout my first week I felt really good about the challenge. All the things I relished about the experience the first time around came flooding back, as I found myself less distracted, less self-conscious, more present. I found that when the urge to improve myself by making purchases came bubbling up, as it sometimes does, a bit of experimentation with make-up or a creative change of outfit could generally assuage it without difficulty. I felt more clearheaded, able to see items in shops as analogues of items I already have - oh, a necklace? I have necklaces already - rather than things I needed to accumulate to be whole.

Toxic Femininity

Not long ago I met up with my bridesmaids - six of my dearest friends - for morning coffee. Socialising with other women post-lockdown has been a bit of an eye-opener for me - embarrassingly, I had kind of forgotten that not everyone has been in the same echo chamber as me, worrying about climate change and learning how to cut down their consumption. Actually, I kind of completely forgot that lots of people aren't generally thinking about their consumption as problematic (whether it is or isn't, which of course is not for me to decide, although I would suggest that all of us in the global North perhaps need to think twice about our normalised habits) or obsessing over ethical fashion and cosmetics, and had to work at not pulling a disapproving-grandma face any time anyone mentioned PrettyLittleThing or L'Oreal.

What I have been working on, however, is being more open and honest about stuff (hopefully in a gentle way), so at one point I did find myself saying to two of my particularly glamorous friends - one of whom I haven't seen without make-up and impeccably coiffed hair since we were in primary school, and one of whom I have never seen without the whole arsenal of femininity in play - that I'm amazed by how they do it with two children apiece when I find it a challenge to shave my legs with any kind of regularity, let alone find the time for flicky eyeliner, and I wished I could ever manage to be as groomed.

Once they'd finished laughing at me, they told me two things: firstly, that skinny jeans can be hiding all sorts of things, so even the most fabulously turned out woman might possibly have not got around to shaving for three months, and apparently this is pretty normal. 

Secondly - and here one of my very oldest friends flicked her elegantly curled, highlighted hair, looked me dead in the eye, and said, "Well, I wish I didn't feel like I have to bother with all this -" she waved a hand to indicate her make-up and curls "- just to feel like I can leave the house. I wish I could be more carefree. I feel like other girls who don't wear make-up all the time are way more comfortable in their skin than I am. This is what I have to do just to feel acceptable, and I love it when I can get home and take my make-up off so I can rub my eyes without smooshing my mascara all over the place."

Okay. So that was me told. I was kind of stunned, to be honest. How had I managed to angst about my girl envy all this time without ever considering things from the other side of the fence?

Another thing we talked about a little bit - perhaps inevitably - was weight. I guess out of the seven of us, probably three or four are on a diet at any given time. Even I bought a scale this year, but I'm going to talk about that whole mess in another post. Suffice to say for now that eventually I had to sit down and re-read Just Eat It, and that while I was doing so I suddenly realised that the way a lot of women feel about their weight and looks - not good enough, must constantly improve - is also how I very often feel about the way I dress and the things I own.

What diet culture and consumer culture have in common is simply this: it's about control. When you fall too far into these twin traps, your thoughts are forever rattling around the same hamster wheel: what should you eat, how do you look, what should you wear, what should you buy. When you walk into a room, or down the high street, you automatically and semi-consciously rank yourself against other women - who's the thinnest, prettiest, best-dressed? 

More and more of us now are becoming aware of the toxic and damaging messages of diet culture, but I haven't often seen it linked to the parallel trap of overconsumption. Yet to my mind the insidious connections are obvious - people with low self-esteem are far more likely to spend more, not just on gyms, diet foods, supplements and all the other accoutrements peddled by the nutribollocks industry and its influencer poster children, but also on clothes (to conceal, to sculpt, to flatter, to commiserate, to aspire to), cosmetics, treatments and surgeries. Treat yo'self - self-love can be yours, right now, for this one-off bargain price of the cost of bath bombs, crystals, candles, lingerie, gym gear, hair dye, new nails, fake tan, gym membership, microblading, laser hair removal and a plant-based wellness spa retreat in the heart of the Cotswolds. 

I feel like this weird self-hating soup of diet culture, overconsumption and influencer culture is to women and femme-presenting people as toxic masculinity is to men. Things we might otherwise enjoy for their own sake (clothes, fashion, beauty, movement, food) become tainted by this bizarre set of rules for how we are 'supposed' to look (exist).

Stay in your box. Keep your attention fixed on the way you look. Build your brand. Get thin. Get thicc. Get strong. Get noticed. Be different, but also accessible. Be relatable, but also better. Have the right kind of eyebrows. Suck your stomach in. A little bit of FaceTune never hurt anyone. So authentic (#ad). It's not a diet, it's a lifestyle change.  Don't rest on your laurels. Don't rest, period. Don't consider being content - there's always something else you can tone, sculpt, tweak, improve, buy, buy, buy. 

It's all the same trap.

Imagine: if being a woman wasn't a secret competition to be the best woman.

Imagine: feeling content. With what you have. With who you are.

Imagine: if you took the time you put into beauty routines and wardrobe overhauls and decluttering and shopping and diets and faux wellness and used it instead to rest and recharge. 

If you could walk into a room without a) picturing how you looked walking into the room and b) immediately ranking yourself against everyone there.

What your social life would look like if no one was worried about their body, their skin, their clothes, their hair. 

If we re-framed self-esteem as something you build, not something you buy, and made it contingent on something other than looks or wealth.

If we stopped buying - literally - into the bullshit.

Beauty Care for Wild Women

A change I made around the beginning of this year was that I started carving out a little more time to take care of myself. Beauty and I have had a fairly chequered history - I've swung from surface glamour - elaborate hair and make-up routines, but at bedtime taking a halfhearted swipe at my eyeliner with a bit of damp loo roll and sleeping with my foundation on - to letting nature take its course in the - apparently mistaken - belief that if I followed the same skincare routine as my other half, my skin might end up as clear as his.

Paradoxically, I am quite self-absorbed yet pretty bad at the basics of looking after myself, which is why I have plantar fasciitis (bad shoes) and sensitive teeth (turns out you shouldn't drink multiple cartons of juice a day for several years if you don't want to tear up every time you eat something with sugar in it). I have been a person who buys new outfits on a daily basis, but once left a bout of tonsilitis untreated for so long that it spread to my stomach glands. I was basically unable to eat from the pain and felt so run down and ill that I fell asleep in public places on my lunch break, but I assumed it was some weird new psychosomatic manifestation of my eating disorder and didn't bother to see a doctor for a rather long time. I honestly didn't know that tonsilitis of the stomach was a thing that could happen.

I was surprised to find that I had a bit of resistance to reinstating any kind of grooming routine beyond soap, water, lip balm and a dab of botanical perfume. I felt as if I were, in some way, betraying my 'natural self'. Is my muslin face cloth a tool of the patriarchy? I still don't really have a clear answer on that one. I suspect it's somewhat akin to 'shopping ethically' under capitalism, and we can all only do our best.

Anyway, much like rebuilding my wardrobe after giving birth, I decided I wanted to feel good in my body again, and as well as doing my yoga and going for walks, for me this meant I had to give it a little TLC. I kind of feel like I shouldn't have to - surely my body will look after itself best if I just leave it alone? - but after a week of dry body brushing in the morning and applying lotion in the evening, my skin was so improbably soft that I had to concede that perhaps I could do with a little bit of looking after, after all.

I remind myself that women throughout history have cared for their skin and hair using nature's bounty - which, yes, has included lead and nightingale poo at various times, but given that many beauty products currently contain the likes of petrol, carcinogens and formaldehyde, perhaps we shouldn't be too quick to judge - and what I am doing is therefore no different. I make my own products where I can, but when the ingredients cost as much as ready-made products, I buy carefully chosen natural products from a small handful of retailers. 

Recently, I had a fitting for my wedding dress, and under the bright lighting I winced to see how unkempt I was next to my (admittedly exceptionally beautiful) bridesmaid, who is always very well-groomed. We got to talking about wedding make-up - when we first planned the wedding, a make-up artist and professional photographer were booked, but having rearranged four times due to COVID, they were no longer available (or affordable). I didn't mind doing my own make-up, but in that moment it dawned on me that my two-years-out-of-date Lush slapstick probably wasn't going to cut it. 

When I started looking into what was available, I learned that since I started my shopping ban, the world of beauty had kind of moved on without me. I didn't actually know that primer was a thing. At first I panicked, and begged my gorgeous bridesmaid Bel to take me make-up shopping, envisaging a sprawling department store where some glossy professional could teach me how the hell one fills in their brows without looking as though they have a couple of weevils crawling across their forehead. (That said, the last department store makeover I had, circa 2016, was appalling - I had to sneak into work to wash off the Batman-villain eyebrows whilst my glamorous co-worker laughed herself hoarse.)

The night after the fitting, I decided I wasn't ready to compromise my 'crunchy' standards (side note: I recently learned the term 'granola girl', and although I'm not really the right age group for TikTok trends, please know that this is me. Granola mumma?). I went online and ordered some samples from zero waste, organic, natural and vegan make-up brands - all through Peace with the Wild, link below - and yes, I found a primer. The foundation, concealer and powder all had four ingredients - all of which I could recognise and pronounce. I felt better knowing I could look my best for my handfasting without compromising on ethics, or putting toxic goop on my face.

I do love to try new products, but I'm extremely cautious and generally don't put anything on my body that I wouldn't eat (the exception is nail varnish - I haven't bought any new since the end of 2020, but I have a few bottles that I have been given by friends). I also don't hoard products and only buy new to replace what has been used up. Dai has more bathroom products than I do.

What I am trying not to do is focus on concealment, improvement or perfection, but instead think about nourishment and care. 

For the curious, I shop from:

Peace With The Wild

Lush (although I'm choosy about which products; some contain talc or parabens which I prefer not to use)

The Really Wild Soap Company

Bain + Savon

I also use flower essences to gently help me stay in balance, my essentials are both from Saskia's Flower Essences - I use Breathe Deep, Seek Peace and My Personal Space.

For further reading, I highly recommend:

Wild Beauty by Jana Blankenship

No More Dirty Looks by Siobhan O'Connor and Alexandra Spunt

Freedom Face: A Beauty Guide Free From Toxic Ingredients, Expensive Gloop and Self-Hating Bullshit by Lucy AitkenRead

(I did not realise until typing this list how many of these names and titles contain the word 'wild'!)

I Suck at Being Green (But I'm Still Trying)

There are a number of reasons why I'm not very good at being green. I've been trying to 'go greener' since late 2019, when I learned about the climate crisis and went into panic mode. And whilst I do my best, I still often feel like a beginner at these lifestyle changes, and I've made more than a handful of bad decisions along the way. I console myself with the fact that I alone won't make any huge difference one way or the other, but as someone who cares about nature and the environment, and who wants to leave a safe and thriving planet for future generations, I still feel that it's worth trying to bring my lifestyle in line with my values.

In some areas, I feel like I'm doing okay. I've hosted a successful clothing swap party (pre-COVID!) and look forward to doing so again one day. We clean our house with reusable cloths and white vinegar, we use cloth wipes for the little one's bum (he doesn't like wearing the reusable nappies, though, which I wish I could have predicted before I bought them as they're hardly cheap. And I don't know if the staff at his nursery next year will be willing to use cloth wipes, but I'll certainly ask), and I continue to volunteer for Greenpeace. I use an eco friendly natural deodorant, and it took a long time to find one that was natural, effective, and doesn't contain baking soda, to which I'm sensitive (I use Space Cat by Awake Organics; it lasts absolutely ages - one tin lasts me six months - comes in recyclable packaging, I smell faintly citrussy, and I don't need to worry about aluminium in my breast milk). My hair dye is henna; for laundry I use an eco ball with a touch of Dr Bronner's if it's Dai's work gear or baby poop; I have a safety razor so I don't use disposables. We have a sustainable loo roll subscription. I'm on a green energy tariff (I use USwitch to get the best deals). So it's not all bad!

But there are still a lot of changes I'm struggling with. My biggest weakness - and this won't surprise you! - is that I still find it really hard not to shop for new clothes. Even though I don't need any! It's a problem. I've noticed that I have a big splurge around every third month (September, December, March). So gotta watch myself this month. And yes, I'm buying from much better companies, and I no longer spend my entire bank account every month (hooray) so things have distinctly improved. Fashion is such a polluting industry, though, that I really want to stop shopping when I don't actually need to be. (Even as I'm typing this, my brain is like "oh but when you go away for your birthday weekend you might see something you like," but I must try harder to be a bit more ruthless if I don't want to end up back at square one.) 

I find it hugely frustrating that others find it comparatively easy not to clothes shop. My friend Topaz has only bought a handful of second-hand items on eBay since her last big clearout, which was last year. Whereas I seem to be convinced that I'll miss out on some magical item that will, I dunno, round out my personality and give my life meaning? 

Food is another bone of contention for me. We did try switching our weekly grocery shop to an organic delivery company last year, but in the end we had to accept that although the quality was great, the cost just wasn't realistic for us. I also don't do all the grocery shopping for the family, and those who do don't necessarily share my concerns about excess packaging and imported foods. I did put my foot down over blackberries in January flown from South America, but when somebody else is buying your food you can only do so much whingeing before you start sounding seriously ungrateful. We also do eat meat, although we have cut down a lot, but I can't honestly picture Dai ever going veggie.

I have also found that frugality and environmentalism don't always go hand in hand. Often they do, such as with our kitchen cloths and baby bum wipes, but sometimes the price of an eco alternative puts it well out of my reach. Sometimes I accept paying more for an item which is better for me and better for the environment, for example I only use cosmetics without a whole host of toxic ingredients (except the batch of seriously colourful make-up I recently bought off a goth friend - she wasn't using it, so it's recycling, and although I'm ambivalent about make-up on occasion I've been enjoying playing with things like upsettingly orange eyeshadow and swamp-witch-green mascara. I dread to think what's in it, though). And since I switched us all to natural bath products, the Spud's eczema has cleared up, which is telling. It means that my spend on cosmetics is a lot higher than some people's - what's a body lotion cost in Aldi? 70p? The last one I bought was from Luna Levitas and cost about a tenner. But I use what I buy, only buy what I need, and my skin does actually seem to benefit. And we save on eczema creams, so there's that.

I had a bit of a problem with shampoo, though. I tried switching to natural shampoo last year, but I didn't know that in a hard water area, shampoo needs to have a surfactant to actually work. Many shampoo bars and natural shampoos are just made with oils, so for several months I went around with greasy hair and a horrible grey waxy build-up that even the strongest apple cider vinegar rinse wouldn't shift. I couldn't understand what was going on and thought I was just going through the worst detox phase of all time. Then just when I was ready to give up, I found a post on a blog called Sustainably Lazy that explained the whole thing. I immediately switched to a shampoo bar from Lush and have never looked back! 

I've made the mistake of trying to buy my way to sustainability, spending a fortune on organic veg boxes and reusable nappies and fancy matching cloths and zero waste bras (okay, I actually really recommend these, they're from Pethau Bach on Etsy and they're brilliant and gorgeous. They also come in a breastfeeding style, which is what I currently wear) and jute washing up cloths and organic toothpaste and so on and so on, which blew a chunk of my finances and turned out to be completely unnecessary in a lot of cases. You can use old cotton t-shirts for cleaning rags, you don't actually need a colour coordinated set. I've also tried to do the opposite and stop spending any unnecessary moneys ever, but I went too far in my Eco Thrift Crusade and felt like a right joyless old frump; in the end it was a relief to run out and buy some nail polish. So as usual, extremes are counter-productive, at least for me. I push myself too far in one direction or the other and then tend to burn out. 

For a while recently I felt tired of the whole thing - I'd lost any sense of what the point was, and the ever-present temptation of shopping my way to fulfilment (or at least a sort of pleasant-ish numbness) was starting to seem a far more tantalising prospect. Funnily enough, it was my rekindled interest in Paganism (more about this later!) which has revived my interest in green and simple living. I say funnily enough because my previous forays into various Pagan paths have involved purchasing a lot of fancy implements and setting up elaborate altars only to feel disheartened and move on after a couple of months. This time I've bought no athames, pentacles, incense, altar cloths, crystals, divination decks, Goddess statues, wands, runes, singing bowls, ritual robes, goofer dust, crystal balls, besoms, black mirrors, candles or anything else! Instead I've taken my own advice - spent time daily in nature, kept up my meditation practice and done a bit of online research. I came across a description of Druidry that stopped me in my tracks, as it seemed very close to what I've been feeling and experiencing myself. 

I'll need to know more about Druidry before I say for sure, so I need to get my hands on some books and look into it further, but it really seems like a down-to-earth philosophy of living that could add meaningfulness to my environmentally-based choices and depth to my experience of the world. The Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids offers a highly recommended correspondence course that I'm intrigued by, not least because you're assigned a mentor whom you can plague with questions (Dai can attest to the fact that I'm full of annoying spiritual questions right now). I've also been reading some Druid blogs (Druid blogs!) and, well, isn't it great when you find someone else articulating things you've been thinking and feeling? 

So that's where I'm at right now. Imperfectly green but doing my best, intrigued by Druidry, excited by possibilities (and overfond of parentheses).