I Quit Fiesta Archives - Eco Thrifty Living

The I Quit Blog Fiesta no.12 – oops I nearly forgot!

Zoe — Mon, 03 Mar 2014 22:50:00 +0000

This month I am running a little late with my I Quit Blog Fiesta, but here it is – better late than never!

Two inspirational ladies are taking on two challenges this month and I had to write about both of them.

Westywrites is just about to embark on going Supermarket Free for Lent and has written a great list of things not to buy in preparation for the challenge including things like fruit juice, clothes and tissues – find out more here.

Jen from My Make Do and Mend Year has also set herself a challenge over Lent – The Six Items Challenge. It is basically a challenge to only wear 6 items of clothing for 40 days over Lent. There are some exceptions like nightwear, exercise gear etc you can find out more here. Jen is raising money for Labour Behind the Label who are a ‘not-for-profit cooperative that supports garment workers’ efforts worldwide to improve their working conditions.’ She is encouraging people to join her in this challenge and I was very tempted, but I don’t think I am ready for this one just yet (although I’m pretty sure this type of challenge will be featuring in my life at some point soon!). You can sponsor Jen here and I’m sure she would really appreciate your donations.

I am still going with all my quitting challenges as part of My Year of Eco Challenges (read more here) and here is a quick (ish) update as to how they are all going:

I’m still shampoo free and still wouldn’t say it was successful just yet.
I am continuing to stay away from the supermarkets and am enjoying shopping locally.
I have made a few leaps forward in the last few days at going single use plastic free and have successfully made peanut butter and pasta! Well when I say successful I found them edible and even had to take a break from not eating wheat to try the pasta (i.e. eat it for dinner two days in a row). I haven’t successfully blogged about them just yet though and plan to do so soon.
I haven’t bought anything for myself (although I have been given a couple of things and we have bought a couple of things for the house, but I haven’t actually broken any of my rules) – read more about this challenge here.
I am doing a pretty rubbish job of mending things and although a stitch in time saves nine, I have been slowly watching various things disintegrate around me.
I am still giving things away (I guess this is tenuously a quit as each time I give something away I quit owning it : ) ). Some days/ weeks I give more than others and some days I don’t give much away (if anything at all). I don’t beat myself up about it though and keep looking for those opportunities to give.
My Rubbish Diet challenge has ended, but I have now stopped chucking lids in the bin and keep thinking – I really must order a Green Johanna, I really must order a Green Johanna (one of these days I will get round to it). I have also started putting more paper in my compost bin, especially paper that I have used to mop up spills and I haven’t used any kitchen paper at all for a few weeks now.
I am finding my latest quit – toilet paper – really easy and slightly entertaining (read more here and here – you know you want to ).

I think that is it with the quitting stories for this Fiesta, but I would love to hear from you next month!

See you again next time!

If quitting has saved you money, was kinder to the environment and / or improved your health and you have written a recent blog post about it, then please send me the link in an email to ecothriftyliving@gmail.com by 25th March to be included in the next fiesta which will go live on the 1st April 2014 (ish).

The rules:

Please do not send me any links to sponsored posts, promotions or giveaways
Links don’t have to be recent, but will only be published once (i.e. please don’t send repeat links to future fiestas).
Please link back to the fiesta in your featured blog post(s) either by text link or by adding the button below to the relevant blog post

I look forward to reading all your ‘I quit’ stories!

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 The I Quit Blog Fiesta no.12 – oops I nearly forgot! appeared first on Eco Thrifty Living.

The I Quit Blog Fiesta no. 11

Zoe — Sat, 01 Feb 2014 17:41:00 +0000

I’ve made it to the 11th I Quit Blog Fiesta after a little bit of a wobble last month (read more here)! This month it is a party for 3, plus all you lovely readers out there.

Westywrites has set herself the challenge of preparing to go single use plastic free for Plastic Free July and her latest blog posts about how she is tackling this can be read here and here. She is also planning on going Supermarket free for Lent which you can read about here. This is on top of her decision to buy no new clothes for a year plus a few other challenges she has set herself here! What an inspiration! In fact the reason I started planning for plastic free July so many months in advance of it was because I saw Westywrites was doing it and thought what a good idea. I’m really glad I did start so early as it is quite a massive task and there is very little chance I would have even vaguely achieved it if I had started at the beginning of July (and to be honest I’m not sure if I’m going to be able to achieve it totally, but I will give it a good try).

At the beginning of the year theFIREstarter set himself a Mega-Detox Challenge. He set himself 5 challenges for the month which involved doing exercise and avoiding caffeine and alcohol (read more here). He kept a challenge log to tell everyone how it was going along the way here and wrote up the final results of his challenge here. He managed to complete 4 of the challenges and gave the 5th one a really good go, so well done to theFIREstarter! TheFIREstarter has also decided to buy no new clothes for 2 months to sponsor My Year of Eco Challenges (which you can read more about here) – thanks again theFIREstarter!

TheFIREstarters challenges got me thinking about tea as I have read a few articles saying that there is plastic in some teabags (see here, here and here). If you can’t be bothered to read the articles basically there are two problems with using plastic in teabags – 1. the plastics can leach into the tea, which may potentially cause health problems and 2. they aren’t biodegradable. Apparently there are health hazards with paper teabags as well and my advice would be to use loose leaf tea, or grow and dry your own herbal teas like chamomile (find out how here) or peppermint (can be dried in a similar way to camomile flowers) or even make your own real tea (did you know there is a tea plantation in Cornwall and alongside selling tea, they actually sell tea plants so you can grow your own – see here!)

Back onto the subject of quitting, I am still plodding on all with all my quitting challenges –

It is now around 11 months since I went sugar free and although my weight loss is very slow at this point I am still gradually losing more. I watched the interesting sugar vs fat programme which was on TV recently and I would like to stress that on my sugar free diet I eat plenty of fruit, vegetables and carbohydrates. I just avoid refined added sugar and refined carbohydrates (In the programme two twins take on extreme diets for a month – one on a low fat diet, and one on a low sugar diet. The one with no sugar doesn’t eat any fruit or vegetables or carbohydrates at all though and I would never recommend that).
I am still shampoo free and although I have definite hair envy going on when I look at other people’s freshly shampooed hair, my hair is improving and isn’t as greasy as it could be after weeks of not washing it with anything other than water (I last used soap in my hair 3 weeks ago) !
I haven’t bought anything at all in a supermarket since I started that particular challenge (although I have been fairly close to a few when getting out cash, filling up with petrol, doing some recycling and loitering outside while my husband shops for things for him…)
I haven’t bought anything new or secondhand for myself. This challenge isn’t as straightforward as it first seemed though as my husband has bought a kitchen knife and some tea towels because he thought we needed them, but he bought them with our joint money. So I decided not to use them until the challenge is over (unless all our tea towels end up on the compost heap before the year is out, which is a possibility as they are pretty worn). Plus when I ordered too many photos for some photo calendars I made for gifts (read more here), I couldn’t think of anyone to give them to except to my husband. He decided to put them up in a multi-frame photo frame on the wall, which technically I benefit from, but I didn’t ask him to do it, so I’m letting that one slide…
I am gradually going single use plastic free – In particular quitting cling film is one thing we have done well with.
We haven’t missed our microwave since it went. I reheat things all the same ways I would cook them e.g. sauces get defrosted in a saucepan, fish or meat might get cooked in the oven from frozen, tortillas (not that I eat them) are heated up on a frying pan….
I am mostly wheat free, but will admit to having some homemade pizza and bread the other day (I didn’t want to waste food).
I also have had a little bit of alcohol (about 5 glasses of wine – 3 on new years eve and 2 since then – hence why I looked so tired in my last I Quit Blog Fiesta) but I put on weight straight afterwards, which put me off having it… Although I don’t think I want to give up drinking alcohol entirely, just most of the time…
I know it was a long time ago now, but ever since I quit using lipsalve, I have never used it again (read more here)

I think that is it with the quitting stories for this Fiesta, but I would love to hear from you next month!

See you again next time!

If quitting has saved you money, was kinder to the environment and / or improved your health and you have written a recent blog post about it, then please send me the link in an email to ecothriftyliving@gmail.com by 25th February to be included in the next fiesta which will go live on the 1st March 2014 (ish).

The rules:

Please do not send me any links to sponsored posts, promotions or giveaways
Links don’t have to be recent, but will only be published once (i.e. please don’t send repeat links to future fiestas).
Please link back to the fiesta in your featured blog post(s) either by text link or by adding the button below to the relevant blog post

I look forward to reading all your ‘I quit’ stories!

The post The I Quit Blog Fiesta no. 11 appeared first on Eco Thrifty Living.

The I Quit Blog Fiesta no. 10

Zoe — Wed, 01 Jan 2014 22:32:00 +0000

It’s the 10th edition of the I Quit Blog Fiesta. I have to admit that I have been starting to wonder if I should carry on with My I Quit Blog Fiesta as I haven’t been having many people sending me links on things they have been quitting.

I will carry on with this Fiesta for the time being though as although I’m not getting many people joining in, I think sharing stories about and celebrating the quitting of all things bad for the environment, our health and our wallets is really important. There are so many things that so many people (including myself) have unhealthy addictions to and half the time we don’t even realise it (even when we joke about it, sometimes we don’t genuinely realise we are addicted). Things like smartphones, tv, lipsalve, junk food, sugar, caffeine, chocolate, shampoo, shopping, cars, computer games, fizzy drinks, supermarkets, plastic and loads more.

Quitting these things, doesn’t just help us, it helps the planet too as the lower the demand for these things, the less they will be produced and the less damage will be done to the environment. We are constantly bombarded with messages that we should continue consuming these things and it can be really hard to quit something, especially if we don’t think there is a problem in the first place. I’m hoping that by sharing our stories we can help and inspire each other. You might think something completely different and if so that is fine and I would love to hear about it in the comments below!

Anyway back to the Fiesta – this time I’m going to write about not using shampoo as I haven’t written about it in a while.

I have written about going ‘no poo’ too many times to mention, but in brief summary I haven’t used shampoo since late September 2013. This is my second attempt at going ‘no poo’ – the first was not a success (and I tried for 6 months)

I have been doing a mixture of using olive oil soap on my hair, just washing with water and not washing it at all for days.

I washed my hair with water today after not washing it at all for 3.5 weeks. The last time I washed my hair I used olive oil soap and it was looking ok. It stayed looking ok for around a week. Then it got greasy and it stayed greasy for around a week. Then it got slightly better for several days, then it started getting greasy again.

It’s not looking brilliant at the moment (picture taken today after washing my hair), but I’m wondering if I leave it a bit longer without using olive oil soap, whether it will sort itself out again… I’m going to see how long I can endure it for!

I do tend to wear it down a lot these days. Putting hair up can damage it. So although it doesn’t look brilliant, I try to wear it down as much as possible.

I could just wash it with olive oil soap once a week and my hair would look fine, but I would really like my hair and scalp to get used to having no products on it at all. I know this will take months as last time after 6 months, it still hadn’t adjusted fully. This time though I am giving it a year, so here’s hoping it sorts itself out before then!

I had a quick look around on google and I found a new ‘no poo-er’ here. I really hope she has an easier time of going ‘no poo’ than I am! I also noticed that Jen of My Make Do and Mend Year has a few New Years Resolutions which you can read about here, one of which is to quit TV for a month – good luck Jen!

UPDATE: Forgot to also mention Westywrites great new challenge not to buy any new clothes for the whole of 2014, which you can read about here!

See you again next time!

If quitting has saved you money, was kinder to the environment and / or improved your health and you have written a recent blog post about it, then please send me the link in an email to ecothriftyliving@gmail.com by 25th January to be included in the next fiesta which will go live on the 1st February 2014 (ish).

The rules:

Please do not send me any links to sponsored posts, promotions or giveaways
Links don’t have to be recent, but will only be published once (i.e. please don’t send repeat links to future fiestas).
Please link back to the fiesta in your featured blog post(s) either by text link or by adding the button below to the relevant blog post

I look forward to reading all your ‘I quit’ stories!

If you liked this post I would really appreciate it if you click like on Facebook and follow on Twitter – thanks!

The post The I Quit Blog Fiesta no. 10 appeared first on Eco Thrifty Living.

The I Quit Blog Fiesta no.9

Zoe — Sun, 01 Dec 2013 21:20:00 +0000

It’s the 9th edition of the I Quit Blog Fiesta and I’m still just as addicted to quitting as ever. There are the quits that I have been writing about as part of My Year of Eco Challenges shampoo, supermarkets, shopping, going plastic free and then there are the ones I haven’t yet.

I actually realised the other day that I haven’t drunk any alcohol for around two months (except a tiny amount each Friday night as part of the Jewish Kiddush ritual) and I don’t want to really. I am going to a hen party soon though, so I might make an exception for that, although I also might not…

I have also given up eating wheat – not religiously though. I did make an exception the other day because I was short on time and it was the quickest easiest option available but in general I haven’t been eating any wheat. I decided to give it up because I suffer from IBS problems and I thought it might be contributing to them (also one of the reasons I have been avoiding alcohol). Plus I started thinking about it after I Quit Blog Fiesta no.6 where I shared Jennifer from Slightly Hippie Housewife of Surburbia’s link about quitting smoking, her microwave, wheat and sugar…

I have found my local Chinese shop is a great place to find wheat free noodles (although sadly not plastic free, which is a battle for another day). The other day I got some butternut squash noodles (they tasted a little wierd though). They also sell rice noodles and buckwheat noodles and other noodles (depending on the week). I bought some brown rice spaghetti from a health food shop which is also quite nice, but the Chinese shop was cheaper than the health food shop…

It’s not all about me this month, Team Pugh from A Year Without Supermarkets having finished one challenge decided to set themselves another one – to give up TV for a month! What a great challenge and such a good idea… (no I’m not giving up my tv – not at the moment anyway…)

Anyway that’s it for this month.

See you again next time!

If quitting has saved you money, was kinder to the environment and / or improved your health and you have written a recent blog post about it, then please send me the link in an email to ecothriftyliving@gmail.com by 25th November to be included in the next fiesta which will go live on the 1st January 2014 (ish).

The rules:

Please do not send me any links to sponsored posts, promotions or giveaways
Links don’t have to be recent, but will only be published once (i.e. please don’t send repeat links to future fiestas).
Please link back to the fiesta in your featured blog post(s) either by text link or by adding the button below to the relevant blog post

I look forward to reading all your ‘I quit’ stories!

If you liked this post I would really appreciate it if you click like on Facebook and follow on Twitter – thanks!

The post The I Quit Blog Fiesta no.9 appeared first on Eco Thrifty Living.

I Quit Blog Fiesta no.8

Zoe — Fri, 01 Nov 2013 21:07:00 +0000

It’s the 8th edition of the I Quit Blog Fiesta and I’ve discovered a whole website dedicated to lip balm addiction! It’s called Lip Balm Anonymous and it claims that lipbalm is addictive. I managed to quit lipsalve around 2 years ago after applying it frequently throughout the day for years. I was addicted. I wasn’t using a medicated brand, but I definitely depended on it for a long time.

I have been sugar free and happy for months now and I’m not looking back. Sugar was in the news yesterday with researchers claiming a 20% tax on sugary drinks would help cut obesity and another blogger has recently decided to quit sugar – well done and good luck Loulouloves!

Since starting My Year of Eco Challenges I have gone ‘poo’ free again and quit supermarkets for 11 months. I washed my hair today with just water after 3 weeks of not washing it at all (originally I was planning to wash it tomorrow, but I went swimming..). My theory is that the less interference from me, the sooner it will do it’s own thing. It has a way to go as it is still greasy, but I’ve committed to going ‘poo’ free for a year at least so I will keep plodding on with this..

Only a few weeks of altering my shopping habits and not going to the supermarket no longer seems like a particularly big deal. I have done a fair bit of driving around though getting to know my local area, but I’m getting to know which places are the best to go for different things. My theory is it is a bit like the first time you go to a supermarket you don’t know well – it takes you twice as long to find things, however once you know your way around the supermarket it is much easier. I’m doing the same thing, just with my local area and once I know all the places to find the things I need it will be much quicker and easier.

Plastic is also on it’s way out in my household, so far slightly unsuccessfully with my shower cap mistake and I have another interesting experiment underway which I will blog about soon!

See you again next time!

If quitting has saved you money, was kinder to the environment and / or improved your health and you have written a recent blog post about it, then please send me the link in an email to ecothriftyliving@gmail.com by 25th November to be included in the next fiesta which will go live on the 1st December 2013 (ish).

The rules:

Please do not send me any links to sponsored posts, promotions or giveaways
Links don’t have to be recent, but will only be published once (i.e. please don’t send repeat links to future fiestas).
Please link back to the fiesta in your featured blog post(s) either by text link or by adding the button below to the relevant blog post

I look forward to reading all your ‘I quit’ stories!

If you liked this post I would really appreciate it if you click like on Facebook and follow on Twitter – thanks!

The post I Quit Blog Fiesta no.8 appeared first on Eco Thrifty Living.

The I Quit Blog Fiesta no.7 – microWave goodbye!

Zoe — Tue, 01 Oct 2013 08:25:00 +0000

Welcome to the 7th edition of the I Quit Blog Fiesta! This month I am not partying alone and have two quitting stories from Cass who writes the Diary of a Frugal Family to share!

When her microwave broke she decided not to replace it and she has been enjoying life without it! Although she could have gone out and bought another one quite cheaply she much prefers the extra space in her kitchen and hasn’t missed it at all! I think that’s great!

Today is also the first day of Cass’s going sober for October challenge which she is doing to raise money for Macmillan Cancer Support and if you want to sponsor her all the details are in her blog post here. Good luck with going booze free for a month Cass!

Since I last wrote I have also gone microwave free. I stopped using it a while ago but I hadn’t quite got around to giving it away. I rang round a few charity shops and only found one place in my local area that would take it – my local YMCA warehouse. So a couple of weeks ago off I went and waved goodbye to my microwave! (Just noticed originally I was thinking of selling/ freegling it, but in the end I decided to give it to charity).

I haven’t missed my microwave either and am enjoying the extra space in my kitchen – although I haven’t been as organised as Cass and also need to do a kitchen declutter!

Can’t stop quitting!

As I might have mentioned once or twice, I just can’t stop quitting. Recently I decided to embark on a whole year of Eco Challenges the first of which is to go ‘poo’ free again! I was quite excited to find that soap worked brilliantly in my hair until a couple of days later when I decided to question the place of soap in my life…

Sugar free update:

I am still sugar free and happy and I have lost a stone and a half since I started. In case you are wondering what I snack on, at the moment it is mainly crackers with spreads or dips (e.g. peanut butter, cream cheese and houmous), veg sticks, apples, satsumas, nuts and seeds.

See you again next time!

If quitting has saved you money, was kinder to the environment and / or improved your health and you have written a recent blog post about it, then please send me the link in an email to ecothriftyliving@gmail.com by 25th October to be included in the next fiesta which will go live on the 1st November 2013 (ish).

The rules:

Please do not send me any links to sponsored posts, promotions or giveaways
Links don’t have to be recent, but will only be published once (i.e. please don’t send repeat links to future fiestas).
Please link back to the fiesta in your featured blog post(s) either by text link or by adding the button below to the relevant blog post

I look forward to reading all your ‘I quit’ stories!

If you liked this post I would really appreciate it if you click like on Facebook and follow on Twitter – thanks!

This blog post has been shared at Fat Tuesday

The post The I Quit Blog Fiesta no.7 – microWave goodbye! appeared first on Eco Thrifty Living.

The I Quit Blog Fiesta no. 6

Zoe — Sun, 01 Sep 2013 09:00:00 +0000

Welcome to the 6th edition of the I Quit Blog Fiesta! This month Jennifer from Slightly Hippie Housewife of Surburbia has been sharing her ‘I quits’. She recently wrote about quitting smoking, her microwave, wheat and most recently sugar – what a brilliant quitter! Well I can say snap to three of those, but I do eat wheat.

I have now been sugar free for over 6 months, an achievement which I am really proud of and something which has now become second nature to me. Recently I put a little weight on though. I went to Bournemouth for 3 days, had sandwiches for lunches, a few meals out (which I rarely do) and put on about 4lbs! I wasn’t eating icecream, chocolate, cake, biscuits or sweets, but I did have a few glasses of wine, some white rice and quite a lot of bread which I usually avoid!

I haven’t seriously thought about giving up wheat altogether before, but it definitely contributed to my weight gain over those 3 days (yes along with the wine and white rice)…Since going away I have gone back to salads for lunch and the weight has started dropping off again. Might give Wheat Belly a read and see if I should give it up for good!

Note: when I say sugar free I mean that 99% of the time I avoid refined carbohydrates and sugars. Sometimes though I eat them in savoury foods which I am very slowly working to eliminate from my diet.. I do also have the occasional glass of wine.

See you again next time!

If quitting has saved you money, was kinder to the environment and / or improved your health and you have written a recent blog post about it, then please send me the link in an email to ecothriftyliving@gmail.com by 25th September to be included in the next fiesta which will go live on the 1st October 2013 (ish).

The rules:

Please do not send me any links to sponsored posts, promotions or giveaways
Links don’t have to be recent, but will only be published once (i.e. please don’t send repeat links to future fiestas).
Please link back to the fiesta in your featured blog post(s) either by text link or by adding the button below to the relevant blog post

I look forward to reading all your ‘I quit’ stories!

If you liked this post I would really appreciate it if you click like on Facebook and follow on Twitter – thanks!

The post The I Quit Blog Fiesta no. 6 appeared first on Eco Thrifty Living.

I Quit Blog Fiesta 5

Zoe — Sat, 03 Aug 2013 20:00:00 +0000

My I quit blog fiesta seems to have turned into a party for one. I would love to hear your stories about quitting things that were doing your wallet, your health and /or the environment no good, so please send them in to me for next time! In the meantime you are going to have to make do with the things I have been quitting!

Bye bye microwave???

I haven’t actually got rid of my microwave, but I can’t remember the last time I used it. I used to cook porridge, peas and potatoes in it and I occassionally used it to defrost things. Now I use the hob/ oven for all the things I used to use the microwave for. Friends use it to heat baby bottles and food though, so I have been hanging on to it. Really though if I didn’t have it, they would have to find another option, so maybe it is time to do the deed and give it away!

Over 5 months of no sugar!

I am still happily sugar free and have started losing weight again – not much but at least it is going in the right direction!

Only real olive oil will do for me!

Chemically refined oils are still very much on my mind and I am avoiding them wherever possible. When I cook I use butter or cold pressed extra virgin olive oil which has come in a dark bottle and has a production and an expiry date!

See you again next time!

If quitting has saved you money, was kinder to the environment and / or improved your health and you have written a recent blog post about it, then please send me the link in an email to ecothriftyliving@gmail.com by 28th August to be included in the next fiesta which will go live on the 1st September 2013 (ish).

The rules:

Please do not send me any links to sponsored posts, promotions or giveaways
Links don’t have to be recent, but will only be published once (i.e. please don’t send repeat links to future fiestas).
Please link back to the fiesta in your featured blog post(s) either by text link or by adding the button below to the relevant blog post

I look forward to reading all your ‘I quit’ stories!

If you liked this post I would really appreciate it if you click like on Facebook and follow on Twitter – thanks!

The post I Quit Blog Fiesta 5 appeared first on Eco Thrifty Living.

The ‘I Quit’ Blog Fiesta no.4 – weight loss photos and more!

Zoe — Wed, 03 Jul 2013 15:29:00 +0000

Welcome to the fourth edition of my I Quit Blog Fiesta! I’m still into quitting in a big way and have been thinking about a few things this month.

Firstly an update on my life without sugar. In total I have lost 16lbs since I quit the sweet stuff, but recently I have plateaued. I have to admit I haven’t been 100% sugar free – occasionally I have had some savoury food containing it when out and about. I have steered clear of sweet foods though. I think that if I want to lose more weight I need to eat less carbohydrates. I have been eating wholegrains, but even then I think too many and I don’t lose any weight.

I’m not so excited about sharing this really unflattering photo on the left, which was taken of me last year before I even thought about giving up sugar. The one on the right was taken a few weeks ago though and looking at the two of them, I’m feeling pretty happy with how far I’ve come!

I’m not the only one who has given up sugar and My Years Without Sugar is well worth a read!

My next plan in life is to give up chemically refined oils. This is easy when it comes to chucking out (I mean finding alternative uses for) the oil in my cupboard, but oil sneaks into all kinds of foods including dried fruit and shop bought organic oat cakes… I plan to slowly eliminate them as I work out the alternatives…

After giving up on giving up shampoo I have to admit I have been enjoying having ‘normal’ hair soo much. It is something I would still like to try again though at some point for all the same reasons I wanted to quit originally. I think a lot of the problem in my area is the hard water and this blogger seems to have had success in a hard water area. Others seem to think that the no poo method actually damages your hair though, so I don’t know…. Any advice out there??

Since the last fiesta I have been doing a little more local shopping, buying milk, eggs and honey (which I only use very sparingly) from local producers, however it is too easy to slip back into old habits and I haven’t been consistent about buying local products – a project for the longer term for me I think!

Anyway, I would really love to hear about what you have been quitting in time for the next Fiesta.

See you again next time!

If quitting has saved you money, was kinder to the environment and / or improved your health and you have written a recent blog post about it, then please send me the link in an email to ecothriftyliving@gmail.com by 24th July to be included in the next fiesta which will go live on the 1st August 2013.

The rules:

Please do not send me any links to sponsored posts, promotions or giveaways
Links don’t have to be recent, but will only be published once (i.e. please don’t send repeat links to future fiestas).
Please link back to the fiesta in your featured blog post(s) either by text link or by adding the button below to the relevant blog post

I look forward to reading all your ‘I quit’ stories!

If you liked this post I would really appreciate it if you click like on Facebook and follow on Twitter – thanks!

This post has been shared at Waste Not Want Not Wednesday

The post The ‘I Quit’ Blog Fiesta no.4 – weight loss photos and more! appeared first on Eco Thrifty Living.

The I Quit Blog Fiesta no.3 – Could you give up supermarkets?

Zoe — Mon, 03 Jun 2013 13:41:00 +0000

This month the lovely Laura from Nestled Under Rainbows sent me a link to her blog post about putting her money where her mouth is in regards to shopping! A while ago she contemplated giving up shopping at the supermarket and has decided now is the time to give it a go. She is shopping at her local farmers market, growing her own and is planning to buy certain things wholesale.

I have to admit Laura is giving me ideas! There is an interesting article in the Guardian from earlier this year which seems to indicate that giving up supermarkets can save you money and there is a great blog about one family’s year without supermarkets providing me with more inspiration…

There was a time when I bought all my food from Abel and Cole and I am a big fan, however a while ago I went back to supermarket shopping as things changed, the supermarkets widened their range of organic produce and I felt like my shopping habits were almost like a vote. I think I felt that if I voted organic with my supermarket shop then maybe they would increase their organic produce further. So many people shop in supermarkets that I thought being a part of it and having a say was more powerful than entirely opting out.

However I used to trust them a lot more than I do these days – now I am far more aware of food fraud. If you are wondering what I am talking about the recent horsemeat scandal is just one recent high profile example. Plus don’t read this article if you ever want to trust that what you are buying is really what you think it is again!

What do you think about supermarket shopping? It is better to be a part of it and change things from the inside or to opt out entirely and vote with your feet?

See you again next time!

I would love to hear your stories in time for my next ‘I Quit’ Blog Fiesta. Please send me an email on ecothriftyliving@gmail.com by 26th June to be included in the next fiesta which will go live on the 1st July 2013.

The rules:

Please do not send me any links to sponsored posts, promotions or giveaways
Links don’t have to be recent, but will only be published once (i.e. please don’t send repeat links to future fiestas).
Please link back to the fiesta in your featured blog post(s) either by text link or by adding the button below to the relevant blog post

I look forward to reading all your ‘I quit’ stories!

The post The I Quit Blog Fiesta no.3 – Could you give up supermarkets? appeared first on Eco Thrifty Living.