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This title could almost be my tagline for life. I’m no eco-warrior, I don’t only buy green or ethically produced products and every so often I stick a plastic bottle in the bin rather than the recycling.

That said – I do try!

While making small changes with my shopping and the products I use won’t change the world it will help a little and my way of think is that if we all help a little it’ll add up to a much bigger difference.
What do you do to help?

Some of my purchases are ethically motivated. I enjoy Traidcraft products (I wrote about this recently here), I choose organic food from retailers and my weekly fruit veg box is organic. I have chosen to change my light bulbs to LEDs and energy savers because it is better for the environment and my purse. I also actively support Freecycle, an organisation that helps people donate their unwanted items to others instead of dumping them in landfill. I do this because it is the environmentally-responsible thing to do and also because I have had a couple of fabulous freebies from Freecycle in the past few years as well as having enjoyed seeing others receive something of mine which they really wanted or needed. Is some of this financially motivated rather than motivated by concern for the planet? Absolutely – but I’m trying!

I am teaching the boys about waste, about not wasting food, about how to make do and mend and am trying to instil a work ethical into them so that they will grow up working for what they want and treasuring what they having rather than buying new all of the time and frittering money. Some of this teaching is for their own good, some is so that I don’t unleash two wasteful creatures into society when they are old enough to leave the nest.

I am trying to teach them how fortunate they are to have the things that they have and to show them the value of things. I feel this is important.

I’m no saint. Try as I might I can’t drink Traidcraft coffee (I am drinking Kenco though and collecting the reward codes to get myself an eco-kettle, that helps right?), I don’t want to substitute everything in my kitchen for organic and I am rather fond of my gadgets. I don’t have a super eco-friendly car (it’s not a BAD car though) and I’m sure I don’t recycle as much as I could.

I do however try and if choosing Ecover cleaning products and recycled loo paper helps a little then I’m on track.

I’ll keep trying and hopefully by this time next year I’ll have introduced a few new green, ethical and moneysaving list of things I’ve tried.

Photo credit

*Written in collaboration with the mentioned business but true to my own thoughts, feelings and experiences.

Did anyone else thoroughly enjoy watching the Antiques Roadshow and try to guess how much each item was worth before the expert let on? I haven’t watched it in years although will now that I’ve been reminded of it look it up once more. What a rush it must be to find that something in your possession might be worth a pretty penny.

(Highest valued item to date on Antiques Roadshow – and Northern in nature too!)

I can’t boast that I have anything of any real worth amongst my vintage finds (although I did pick up recently a perfectly kept Singer sewing machine in its case for a mere £5 and am sure I could, if I ever decided I could bear to be parted from it make a few extra pounds on top of it. I do regularly hit the car boot sales, fairs, charity shops and even the Facebook buy / sell pages looking for items of interest for our home.

When looking for items like these it is often easy to overlook the real worth of a piece of china or an ornament and you have to wonder if people have bargain buys sat around their garage ready to go to the car boot sale that really are worth substantially more than they know.

Carting your charity shop bags after each declutter to the Antiques Roadshow is hardly practical however if you feel you might have an item that you feel could be worth some real money there is a very easy way to check which is considerably cheaper.

Finding a service that offers Antiques Valuations has not be easy as there has been nowhere local that offers it without a hefty fee which I’m not going to pay unless I have a decent idea that an item is worth a substantial amount (not that I have yet found anything that would fit this criteria but you have to keep trying!). Value My Stuff is a website that does the hard work for you. For my friends who are into charity shop hunting and scouring the countryside for vintage or antique shabby chic items this site might be of use to you.

How it works is very simple. You upload picture of your item or items, send and within forty eight hours will receive an email from one the site’s expert Antique Valuers telling you what your item is worth. It really is as simple as that and valuations cost as little as £5.99. There are additional post-evaluation tools available too such as a html badge you may use to upload to Ebay etc if you are choosing to sell your item which shows how much it is worth and that this has been verified.

I haven’t had the chance to have a valuation done myself however I might well be using the site soon as I’ll be back on the car boot and vintage fair trail as soon as the weather picks up a little! In the meantime hopefully this is something that is useful to some of you.

*Consideration was received for writing this post

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Trying Ethical, Green and Money-Saving Living

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