Green is good

Before I start on some long winded philosophical saga on green living, I thought it would be time to answer a question several people have asked lately: are you going to continue writing when the 12 months are up?

The fact is in 2 weeks time me and my family will have spent a year trying to become green and that will be the end of the challenge, but it will not necessarily be the end of this blog. There will however be changes. First of all - 'Green, Lazy and Out of Money' is now as well as a blog the title of a talk. This means that anybody in the Central Belt of Scotland can book me to come along and do a little talk on the ups and downs of going green. I decided that some of all the experience and information we have gathered over the last 12 months just might be helpful to other people - and so far it has been well received. Anybody wanting more information is very welcome to send me an email - see details on the right.

The blog itself is probably going to continue, but on a less regular basis. This is partly due to time constraints but also because it just might end up getting boring! There are only so many energy saving tips or natural beauty products you can try without repeating yourself and somehow I don't think it will be interesting for anybody to continually hear about gardening failures or smart meters or especially read yet another rant about government policy, supermarkets, public transport or any other of my pet complaints... So I have promised myself to only write if I actually have something valuable to say! (Weekly updates therefore impossible...)

I still have a couple of weeks however before this rule applies, so I have decided to share some thoughts with everybody on green living. A few days ago I read an article about how the Government and environmentalist are actually hindering the progress of more sustainable lifestyles. This is not on purpose, but the images connected to greening up life are mostly about giving up things or missing out, e.g. giving up the car, avoiding imported food etc and therefore people are put off. It is not attractive!
For progress to be made focus needs to be changed to the aspects of life that are actually better with a green lifestyle. So here we go, this is my top 10 of stuff that has improved over the last 12 months:

1. We have saved money on the electricity and gas bill, simply by paying attention to our usage. We haven't really missed out on anything, we are just not wasting energy.

2. We are fitter. None of us are super athletes and we never will be, walking and cycling more has made an improvement. Yesterday both my kids walked into town and back, 30 min each way with a play in between and neither of them complained, because they are used to getting around in that fashion.

3. We have saved money on petrol and maintenance of the car.

4. We eat tastier food by getting more local supplies in stead of supermarket stuff. It hasn't really been more expensive, but trust me a burger from the local butcher is better than a plastic wrapped one from the supermarket.

5. We generally eat better. We eat more vegetables and less meat and very importantly we eat less additives and strange chemicals - just by being aware. We have even become more adventurous and tried new things.

6. We have learned a lot about gardening, and had the joy of eating stuff we grew ourselves.

7. We have been outside more. This is a point my daughter wanted included in the list, she said it was nice going out in the fresh air walking or cycling, being in the garden and especially camping. You can't really argue with that.

8. We know more people locally because we have been getting involved in local environmental groups. This has been particularly great because we are new in town and our network has grown quickly.

9. We have wasted a lot less of everything and saved money along the way. We have even received some stuff for free through freecycle and other waste conscious routes.

10. Last but not least we have had the chance to feel that we are achieving something. This might all sound cheesy, and it probably is, but never the less the feel good factor shouldn't be ignored, and going green definitely haven't made us feel bad.

So there you go - being green is good!