Book - Low Cost Living

The more I read about permaculture, living sustainably, living 'greener', lowering your carbon footprint and simple living the more I want to read. I bought John Harrison's book 'Low Cost Living' to give me some ideas on where to make a start so I can change the way our family lives for the better. This book was a good starting point for me as it reminded me of things I already knew, but hadn't thought about for a while, and it gave some common sense suggestions for some changes I can make in the future.

There are twenty-two chapters in this book: 1. Low-cost eating, 2. Beating the Supermarkets at their own game, 3. Cooking your Food, 4. Food Waste, 5. Storing Vegetables, 6. Storing and Preserving Food, 7. Making your Own Chutneys and Jams, 8. Baking Your Own Bread, 9. Making Your Own Butter Cheese and Yogurt (something I am very interested in), 10. Making Your Own Wine, Beer and Cider (something Mr Bee showed quite and interest in), 11. Food for Free, 12. Growing Your Own, 13. Keeping Chickens, 14. Bees in the Back Garden, 15. Pets, 16. Cleaning, 17. Energy, 18. Water, 19. Transport, 20. Recycling, 21. Skills and 22. Money.

It is not a huge book, 220 pages, but it does give a very good starting point which you could elaborate on yourself quite easily with a little research. Reading this book has made me look into my shopping habits and see where I can make a difference in both the types of food I have been buying and the cost of those foodstuffs.My shopping habits are reasonably good and I have always been an 'aware' shopper but over the past few years I have become lazy and a few highly processed foods have found their way into the shopping trolley.

We already recycle the majority of our waste, plastics, glass, cardboard, cartons, compostables but I think I need to consider each product I purchase and the amount of superfluous packaging it comes with. This book has given me much to think about and act upon.

It is time we started to 'Live Better, Spend Less.'