Learning to Live Lagom - Update

So I’m about 3 months into the Live Lagom project with IKEA (check out my first post here) and I wanted to give a little update on how I've been getting on with the products I selected and how they’ve been helping me with a very very busy life recently and overall, helping me to reach my sustainable living aims.

To recap, the aims I set way back in January were:

• Most the most of meal planning
• Batch-cook and freeze
• Get storage savvy
• Save on energy bills

Meal planning - this is something that weirdly has been going really well for the days I’ve actually been at home (working away a lot means having to be super organised on the food front). For the most part, I’ve been meal prepping on a Sunday afternoon and mapping out if I’m home/away, and if I’m home, making sure I’m taking fresh, nutrient dense, and most importantly delicious, food to work. I even meal prepped my food for a recent work trip to London so that I wasn’t picking up convenient (and maybe not so good for me) food on the go. Felt a bit smug on the train, I'm not going to lie. All of the tupperware and food bags I picked up in my LL haul have been fantastic, especially the glass Fortrolig range.

Batch-cook and freeze - so this is something that is going 50% ok at the minute. I’ve been doing batch cooking (hello slow cooker) but the freezing part has fallen by the wayside. I’m hoping to get on this in the next couple of weeks as I’m away pretty much away all of May and three quarters of June, so I want to make sure that when I am actually home during the week, that there’s good healthy food that I can just defrost quickly and eat up.

Meal prepping like a pro.

Get storage savvy - again, this is something that I could’ve put a bit more effort into organising but time has not been on my side (some of the storage containers I picked up as part of this project are still sitting empty...whoopsie!)

Save on energy bills - now this, this is something that is actually happening! Mini fist pump moment. Despite it not feeling very Springlike at all recently, and for the most part just wanting to jam the heating on every time I walk in the front door, all of the textiles I picked up are starting to do their trick. We’ve managed to get our heating bills down significantly which has been a big help on the ol’ bank balance and means that we’re being much more sustainable with our energy consumption. What a win.

All in a all, a positive start to the project. Yes, there are things I could dedicate a little more time to, but we are already seeing big savings on household energy bills, which was a big one for me, so I'm pretty damn pleased with that!

Learning to Live Lagom

Do you Live Lagom? I didn’t even know what that meant until late last year and I definitely didn't up until this year. Lagom literally means, "the right amount is best", a canny little statement for us all to live our lives by. 

It was first introduced to me late last year, when IKEA got in touch with details about a project called Live Lagom - who doesn’t love IKEA? The project is all about getting people to live more sustainably to ultimately help us save money, decrease our waste and help look after our surroundings. An excellent initiative if I do say so myself, ‘cause we all need to do our bit to make sure we’re looking after our gorgeous planet. 

In 2015, IKEA ran this project with employees only, inviting them to select IKEA products that they thought might help them to live more sustainably. The project proved so successful and full of inspiring and fun ways to live more sustainably, that they decided to roll it out to selected IKEA Family members and wellbeing media partners (myself included!) to show how making small and convenient changes to our lifestyles and daily routines could help the planet, reduce waste and our energy bills, and hopefully make home life that bit better too. 

Now, I couldn’t have been more chuffed to be asked to take part in this project to see how I could make improvements and live more sustainably in 2016. IKEA kindly offered me £500 to put towards products of theirs to help me live more sustainably in 2016 and share my thoughts and challenges right here. This could go towards anything from larger items (energy-efficient kitchen appliances) down to things to help with smaller changes like storage, soft furnishings and multi-tasking food containers. 

This is a busy old year for us  - I’ve just started my dream job in athletics which means life is quite hectic and I’m away a lot at weekends at various sporting events; we’re getting married this year too, so in-between the new job, Joe’s job, general life and trying to plan the wedding, we are strapped for time, meaning the time we actually have at home needs to be considered and planned (where we can!), so it was always going to be a challenge for us to live sustainably this year, which is one of the main reasons I really wanted to get involved. Could we live sustainably even though we’re super strapped for time?

One of the first things IKEA asked me to think about was why I wanted to live more sustainably? Well, to put it simply, I just don’t think we do at the moment and it wasn’t something that was very high up on our radar (bad, I know). Yeah we recycle but that’s literally about the only thing we do that could help with a more sustainable way of living, and when it comes down to it, that just doesn’t cut it. We always shove the heating on when it’s a bit chilly in the house rather than put a jumper on, we cook every day/night rather than meal-prep/batch-cook and we aren’t very self-sustaining i.e. growing our own herbs or any veggies/fruit when we actually could.

So what did I want to get out of the project? To live a more sustainable life in a really convenient way. My aims? 

• Meal plan the hell out of life (crucial)
• Batch-cook and freeze (also crucial)
• Get storage savvy (our small flat is riddled with clutter)
• Save on energy bills (cue loads of soft furnishings!)

 Back of our van loaded with IKEA goodies.

I picked up my products earlier this month with the help of Julia, the in-store sustainable living advisor at IKEA Gateshead, so I'm about 3 weeks into living a Lagom way. It’s been so interesting to see how the little changes has given me back time during the week. I’ll keep you posted on how I get on...

Yard Life | Home Style

Our back yard is one of the areas of our flat that we've just never got round to doing much with. Sure we have a (man) shed, a few potted plants and a functional little table and chairs, but it's definitely a work in progress.

This summer, we finally decided to get the yard looking spick and span but we've been struggling in the inspiration department. Enter your old friend and mine, Pinterest.

I've cobbled together a few shots of what we're trying to achieve - hugely looking forward to arranging and building our own suspended lighting canopy (thankfully J is very skilled in the woodwork side of things, how handy?)

Also, I love me some neon accenting, so adoring the idea of the painted breeze block planters below - such a simple and effective idea.

For some other things I'm finding inspiring, head on over to pinning heaven to take a peek at my other boards.

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