Note: this blog post contains affiliate links. All opinions are my own and it won’t cost you anything extra to use them. It will help to support the blog though. Thanks!

Join my Zero Waste Christmas Facebook group

I have started up a Facebook group, where people can share ideas about how to have a zero waste Christmas. You are welcome to post pictures of things you have made,or about your business as long as it is relevant. Come and join it here: Zero Waste Christmas Facebook Group.

Kickstart your Christmas on a budget, by keeping food waste low

Food gives off methane in landfill – a potent greenhouse gas. Reduce food waste in the first place, by avoiding buying more food than needed. It is such a win-win because you get to eat all the same luxury foods you would have done. But you might buy less, which costs less. Or you will make the most of what you have, which gives you the best value out of what you bought.

Do a Christmas meal plan and make a shopping list from that. When you get to the shops (or order online), make sure you stick to the list! If there are leftovers freeze them if possible, to use another time. Also come and join my Reduce Your Food Waste Facebook group community, where you can ask for help if you are stuck on how to use up leftovers. For some general ideas to prevent food waste, check out my round up of use it up ideas.

Buy Eco Friendly festive gifts or make your own eco-friendly budget Christmas presents

If you want to get your friends and family sustainable gifts this year check out my list of sustainable gifts your friends and family will love. I’ve included suggestions for him, her, couples, families, experience gifts, book gifts, kitchen gifts and homemade gifts in there. Plus I also have some suggestions for how to stop unwanted gifts.

Ditch the single use disposable wrapping paper

Swap disposable wrapping paper for reusable and upcycled versions. Wrap gifts in fabric. Or save things from your recycling to wrap gifts in.

If you like a challenge, take the Cut The Wrap challenge and pledge not to use any single use disposable wrapping paper this festive season. If you need some help with this, check out my beautiful eco-friendly ways to wrap up gifts. Also if you want some more in depth information come and sign up to my Sustainable Gift Wrapping Online Course.

Swap Christmas cards for e-cards and other alternatives

Instead of sending cards this year, speak to friends and family and wish them well in person. Other options include sending e-cards and/ or telling friends and family that instead of sending cards this year you are going to make a donation to charity.

In Mike Berners Lee’s book How Bad Are Bananas – the carbon cost of everything, he says that an email costs between 0.2g and 26g of CO2e (Carbon Dioxide Equivalent). Whereas a letter costs between 280g and 350g CO2e. You can significantly lower your carbon impact by sending e-cards over real ones! To make your e-card free, design a Christmas card in Canva (you can get a free account) and share the picture in your email.

Make your own budget Christmas Advent calendar

Make an inexpensive and fun advent calendar with some clean socks or small bags on a line with numbers pinned on them. Fill with a small gift of your choice e.g. a coin, a love note, or a chocolate. If you want to make your own fillers, this homemade condensed milk fudge is delicious. Wrap them up in little swatches of sterilised fabric (and save for next time afterwards). Or put them in small jam jars or pots.

Consider the Christmas tree options

A Christmas tree doesn’t have to be an actual tree. It could be a large houseplant that you decorate once a year or a wall hanging you put up for Christmas each year. You can even get creative with this and make something like this upcycled pallet Christmas tree.

If you want to get an actual tree, it has been concluded that a real tree is better for the environment than a fake tree.

Dispose of real Christmas trees properly

If you buy a real tree, make sure that it gets recycled afterwards. This is because in landfill it can give off methane, a greenhouse gas far more potent than carbon dioxide.

Use reusable Christmas crackers

Instead of having disposable Christmas crackers, you can opt out. Alternatively buy or make some reusable crackers and stuff them with your own less wasteful gifts.

I was sent some reusable Christmas crackers by Keep this Cracker to review and I have some to giveaway (see the bottom of this article). They come flat packed and in two parts, with snaps that you add in. Because they are in two parts, when you pull them apart, the only thing that breaks is the snap. They aren’t cheap, but should last a few years.

You do need to add in your own fillings, but there are loads of festive jokes online you could use. Either leave out the hats, or have reusable ones outside of the crackers. As for the gifts, it depends on your budget. Something like these pill/ money keyrings could be good. I have one and keep a rolled up £10 note in it. So, if I go out and I’ve forgotten my wallet, I still have some money on my keys. Whatever you choose, they will probably be better than the gifts that usually come in crackers!

An easy win for Christmas on a budget – stop buying a new Christmas jumper every year

Instead of buying a Christmas jumper every year for yourself and / or your kids, get Christmas decorations that can be reused each year on your regular jumpers.  For example these Christmas brooches would work and would make great stocking or Christmas cracker fillings too. If you have kids and you don’t want them to have brooches, instead you could buy sew on motifs. Don’t iron them on, just sew them on. This allows you to unpick them and reuse them on a different top the year after (in case they outgrow the original one).

If you don’t like the above idea, you could buy a jumper in a charity shop / secondhand. Then wear it throughout the Christmas season and every year afterwards until it wears out. The final option of course is to simply opt out.

Do a Christmas clothes swap

One of the items in your Christmas budget, might be new clothes. Swap buying new clothes for Christmas get togethers for buying secondhand clothes. Or if you are able to get together in person, do a clothes swap with friends for a wardrobe refresh.

Try a vegan or vegetarian Christmas dinner

Vegan food has gone mainstream. There are many vegan alternatives available in supermarkets and restaurants now, which taste really good. Instead of having a turkey dinner at every event you get invited to, why not give the vegan or vegetarian option a try. 

Ask guests to bring a dish

If you are having people over for a meal (and we are able to), instead of doing everything yourself, ask guests to make part of the meal. You could do a pot luck or ask for something specific (tip: check that the person you ask is happy to bring that item first!). When I’ve done this in the past, I’ve asked people not to bring other things like flowers and chocolates and to bring a dish instead. This will really help with your Christmas on a budget and makes life much easier if you are a host!

Borrow furniture, crockery and glasses

Would you like to invite more people over than you have seats, cutlery, crockery and glasses for? You don’t need to go out and buy these things. Ask guests to bring them with. They have some folding or camping chairs they could bring for example.

Another tip is to buy the items you need secondhand and sell them on afterwards, or to give them to charity. This is useful if you don’t have space to store them throughout the year.

So many ways to have a luxurious and eco-friendly Christmas on a budget!

As you can see there are lots of ways you can save money at Christmas time. It is also better for the environment. Once you get into the swing of it, you will find that you aren’t missing out on anything. You are just doing things a bit differently. You might even find that you can have an even better Christmas. This is because you don’t need more money, just different ideas, to get all the furniture, clothes, food and decorations you want at this time of year!

The post How to have a luxurious eco-friendly Christmas on a budget. appeared first on Eco Thrifty Living.

When I wrote this blog post I was really excited because I was about to go on BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s hour. The topic for discussion was can you really have an eco-friendly budget Christmas?

My answer was and still is – most definitely yes! There are lots of things that you can do to make your Christmas eco-friendly on a budget!

Update: This blog post was written in 2019. Check out my Christmas tips for 2020 here: How to have a luxurious eco friendly Christmas on a budget

My 3 top tips for having an eco-friendly budget Christmas include:

1. Don’t waste food!

According to a study done by Warburtons, this festive season ‘Wasteful Brits will throw away’:

• 130 million sprouts
• 93 million roast potatoes
• 85 million helpings of stuffing
• 91 million slices of turkey
• Enough gravy to fill an Olympic swimming pool
• 82 million roasted parsnips
• 77 million pigs in blankets.
• 60 million glasses of wine
• 63 million glasses of flat beer.

They also found that on average households will make enough food to feed 3 extra people.

How can you avoid food waste?

First of all do a meal plan for the festive season and try to only buy what you need. If you would prefer to have too much food in case of surprise visitors and so on, have a plan for what to do with any leftovers so they don’t go to waste. Here are some examples.

The freezer is your friend

As long as it has only been cooked once, you can freeze most things including gravy, cheese, leftover roast potatoes, turkey, wine and beer. Shred leftover turkey to use in curries, stir fries, on pizzas, in pies and more! Save the gravy, wine and beer to use in cooking- tip freeze in icecube trays and then decant into a reusable freezer proof container. You could make a white wine sauce or a something and beer or ale pie! Use the cheese up in sauces and just reheat the potatoes when you want to eat them.

Use things up in ways you hadn’t thought of before

For example someone in my Reduce Your Food Waste Facebook group said that she always ends up with leftover mincemeat from the jar after she has made mince pies. Turns out there is a lot of things you can do with it e.g. use as an ingredient in apple crumble or have it as a topping on icecream. By the way I’m not talking about raw meat, I’m talking about the chutney that goes in mince pies! If you always have cranberry sauce leftover use it as a spread in leftover turkey sandwiches.

Give away the leftovers

You could make up meal parcels for homeless people. Another way to give food away is via sites like Olio , Freecycle and Freegle

For more ideas for how to use up leftover foods check out my bumper list of ideas here: Food waste – a challenge to avoid it for a day and a round up of use it up ideas . There is also a chapter in my Eco Thrifty Living book all about how to reduce waste in your kitchen.

On another note, you might want to consider having a vegetarian or vegan Christmas instead of the traditional turkey, or at least not have turkey at every Christmas event you go to. Also if you are living in food poverty and food waste is the last thing on your mind, don’t be afraid to ask for help. Read this article from the Citizen’s Advice Bureau on how to get help from food banks – Using a food bank

2. Don’t buy new clothes to wear once.

Christmas parties and Christmas jumper day, can fuel lots of spending on clothes. Often those clothes are worn once or only a handful of times. Save the Children are encouraging people not to buy a new jumper this year, but to find one secondhand because of all the synthetic a.k.a. plastic fibres in Christmas jumpers.

‘Many of the sweaters are expected to end up as single-use items, as two out of five Christmas jumpers are only worn once over the festive period, and one in three adults under 35 buys a new Christmas jumper every year.’

Christmas jumper day goes green to cut down on plastic waste

Where to find secondhand clothes

I went looking round my local charity shops on the weekend and there were lots of party dresses, Christmas jumpers, Santa hats and other things that you will find useful for Christmas. Paying £6.99 for a new (to you) dress in a charity shop will be a lot less expensive than buying something new, is saving something from landfill and if you never want to wear it again, it won’t feel too painful to donate it back to charity once you are done with it.

There are also no spend ways to get hold of new clothes e.g. via Freecycle, Freegle, Facebook groups or friends or family who are having a declutter.

Aside from the plastic there are a lot of problems with fast fashion – for more info take a look at this blog post: Stop buying new clothes now . There is also section in Eco Thrifty Living the book dedicated to sustainable fashion.

3. Rethink what you give

Did you know the 28th of December is now known as Boxing Up Day? It’s the day that we sell our unwanted gifts online. Sites like eBay see a huge spike in listings. Last year it was predicted there would be ‘a staggering 74 million items being listed following Christmas‘. We need to put a stop to unwanted gifts!

Want to know how to do that – read this article: 10 easy ways to stop unwanted gifts . Some of my top tips include asking people what they want before you go shopping and telling people your likes and dislikes before they do! Also I think it is well worth scaling back on giving and receiving gifts in general, especially if there is nothing they or you need.

#CutTheWrap

Another problem with giving is wrapping paper. Most wrapping paper isn’t recyclable. It is often plastic lined or has plastic glitter stuck on it. Also even if it is recyclable, it still involves chopping down trees for a short moment of excitement. Join in with my campaign to put a stop to single use wrapping paper this festive season here: Use wrapping paper alternatives and #CutTheWrap !

For more info check out these 5 days of posts I wrote about how to avoid single use wrapping paper:

• Day 1 was about how to wrap up your gifts in fabric Furoshiki style.
• On Day 2 I provided some clues on how to have a unwrapped festive treasure hunt. There was also a bonus post on how to put an end to the madness of unwanted gifts.
• Day 3 was filled with 6 fun reduced waste Secret Santa ideas
• Day 4 was about making use of your recycling to wrap gifts
• And day 5 was all about how to use old clothes to wrap your gifts!

#CutTheWrap champions

There were lots of other bloggers who got involved and helped to champion the campaign, whose posts are worth checking out too:

• Victoria Sully helped share the campaign on her blogs here: Cut the wrap: save money and stop single use wrapping paper this Christmas and Eco-friendly alternatives to wrapping paper #CutTheWrap
• Fiona Hawkes from Savvy in Somerset wrote about it here Eco Friendly Christmas wrapping ideas
• Rachelle Strauss from Zero Waste Week: Alarming Christmas Waste Statistics and How you Can Have a Zero Waste Christmas
• I did a round up on the UK Money Bloggers site of UKMB’s who pledged to join in with the campaign: Say no to single use wrapping paper
• Savvy Sisters: Wrapping paper alternatives to reduce waste
• Becky Goddard Hill from Family Budgeting- Cutting out things to save the pounds – 5 frugal things
• Ali Clifford from Incredibusy DIY vegan food wraps
• Kizzy from Simply Kizzy – Sunday Faves
• GrowEatGift – Frugal Friday – Wrap It Up

Thanks so much to all the bloggers for their help! Some great tips for an eco-friendly budget Christmas in these posts!

Conclusion

In summary, 3 of my top tips at this time of year are :

• Come up with a plan to avoid wasting food before you go shoppping! That can include meal planning and freezing leftovers.
• Think twice before buying new clothes or a Secret Santa jumper. Make use of what you already have, or what is available second-hand.
• Don’t give gifts for the sake of it that may end up on eBay a few days later. Give gifts that people actually want and if there is nothing they or you need, consider scaling back the gifts. Plus swap disposable plastic lined wrapping paper for more sustainable and reusable options like Furoshiki.

Thanks for visiting the blog and reading this post about how to have an eco-friendly budget Christmas. Hope it was helpful.

If you want to listen back to me on Woman’s Hour, I can be found about half way through the show here: BBC Woman’s Hour and they also put up an article on their blog afterwards including tips from me and others on 9 tips for a greener Christmas.

The post 3 top tips for how to have an eco-friendly budget Christmas! appeared first on Eco Thrifty Living.

If you feel the same way, here are some suggestions for alternatives to secret santa, which are just as fun, won’t cost much and are better for the environment!

1. All pay to do an experience together instead!

Instead of Secret Santa, do an activity together. In these Covid times, it might not be practical to do something in person, but perhaps you could do something fun together online. For example an online quiz, bake along, event or course. My sustainable gift wrap course is only £15 and could be a festive and fun thing to do together .

When it is practical, perhaps you could go bowling. Or visit somewhere like an Upside Down House – it is a Secret Santa priced £5 and under (depending on the day and where it is) to get in, is a bit of a laugh and would make for some fun photos!

2. Do a charity collection for a food bank

Swap buying mindless tat for spending £5 each on food, household items and treats that you can take to your local food bank. Check what types of things the food bank needs and can accept before you buy. No wrapping required for this one! Read more about food banks and what to give them in this post by the UK Money Bloggers about their reverse advent calendar project. You could combine doing a collection/ reverse advent with one of the other ideas on this list too.

3. Ungifted Secret Santa

Have you heard of Ungifted Secret Santa? It is a website which arranges an alternative Secret Santa experience! It is free to use and most of the gift ideas won’t cost you a penny.

You put all the names and email addresses of the people taking part into the site. Next set a date for the Secret Santa giving event. Then each of you get an email with the name of the person you are giving the gift to. You can choose from a range of gift options. The gifts are things like giving them a cake, taking the office dog for a walk and putting post it complement notes on their computer!

It is a bit of a laugh and aside from the cake nothing else is a physical gift so nothing needs wrapping.

4. Do an unwanted gift swap

If you can wait until after the Christmas holidays (and you are all able to get together), you could bring in the gifts that didn’t want and do a swap. Add an element of fun, by making a lucky dip out of an old box and some shredded recycling!

So as you can see, there are some great eco-friendly alternatives to Secret Santa to try! Which one is your favourite?

Looking for more ideas for eco-friendly gifts for Christmas? Check out my list of sustainable gifts, your friends and family will love

The post Fed up of Secret Santa? Want alternative ideas that are just as fun and better for the environment? appeared first on Eco Thrifty Living.

The post Happy Christmas! appeared first on Eco Thrifty Living.

It has quite a woody part just underneath the skin which can be split up and used as toothpicks and once the woody part has been peeled off the inner part can be cooked and eaten!  It isn’t that easy to convey in the picture, but those spiky bits made some tasty toothpicks and I’m looking forward to steaming or stir frying those stem inners…

I am currently undertaking a Year of Eco Challenges . If you have a moment I would really appreciate it if you would consider sponsoring me with an action on my DoNation page. Also if you liked this post please click like on Facebook and follow on Twitter – thanks so much!

The post Seasons greetings and brussels sprouts toothpicks to you all! appeared first on Eco Thrifty Living.

The post Ooh arr me hearties! appeared first on Eco Thrifty Living.