Simple + Straightforward is a weekly letter filled with essays, tips, and ideas to live life more simply and intentionally. If you find value in it, feel free to share with friends and family you think would enjoy a dose of simplicity every Friday.
I hear it’s Mother’s Day in the US soon (I’m a Brit, for us, this is a March holiday).
Despite not being American, I think it’s fitting to bring my mother into proceedings this week.
My mum is 77 and was born during the war. She remembers rationing. And we grew up with very little money to our name. All of which amounts to a rather thrifty, sustainable, and yes, minimal woman,
In my younger years, I used to hate her thriftiness but as I’ve aged, I’ve realized she’s on the button with a lot of her ideas.
In honor of (American) Mother’s Day, I want to share some of her best sustainable wisdom.
Learn from your elders, y’all.
Use recipes like guidelines
Full disclosure here: my mother is a terrible cook. I wish I could wax lyrical about her amazing food rooted in tradition the way some people can do with their mothers.
No. She’s pretty bad.
BUT. She did teach me one super important skill and that is how to substitute ingredients instead of buying every single item.
If a recipe calls for parsley, can you use oregano instead? No scallions available? How about using a scant amount of white onions? Can you use chickpeas instead of kidney beans in your chili con carne?
I call it “thinking like a chef”.
Chefs have strict margins and budgets and they never waste unless they have to. With 40% of America’s food going straight in the trash, it’s a skill we could all do with learning.
So like my mother, I’ll take a recipe as a guideline and change up ingredients if I don’t have the exact item the recipe calls for. Sure, it may not taste the same, but it saves time, money, and wastage. In my book, that’s worth it.
Use “off-cuts” found around the house
Using off-cuts basically means using bits and pieces you have in the house before buying new.
My mother is an artist so when I say off-cuts in this instance, I literally mean she re-uses leftover bits of mounting board instead of throwing them in the trash. She uses them to sketch on, to make notes on, to write out shopping lists. There are piles of little bits of cards all over her house.
She once got my husband to build a couple of planters for her garden from some pallets a builder had left nearby. OK, they might not be as pretty or perfect as what you might find in a garden center, but they were free, and in my opinion, they look far cooler than some molded plastic.
Using what you already have is an old-school idea that has largely been lost. Somewhere along the line, we decided that a visit to Walmart or *insert store here* to buy the perfect *whatever* was better than making do with what we already have at our disposal. It’s certainly easier and sometimes more convenient, but it’s also expensive and often pretty unsustainable.
Nowadays I find myself using “off-cuts” as much as my mother does.
Plant a garden for free
My mother adores her garden. She must spend two hours a day at least in the little patch behind her house. And it’s glorious, packed with flowers, shrubs, and trees.
She’s barely ever spent a penny on it. Here’s how:
She takes cuttings from friends’ gardens.
She largely only plants perennials (plants that return year on year) which means she doesn’t have to re-buy every flowers year.
As I mentioned above, she makes planters from pallets (or at least gets my husband to).
If she does buy plants, she’ll only grow from seed.
Gardens are expensive. The average Brit spends £678 ($850) on their gardens each year. And ready-grown flowers aren’t great for our environment. The majority are grown in peat, the mining of which is unsustainable, so much so that Britain intends to ban the purchase of peat for amateur use by 2024.
By using sustainable gardening techniques, my mother has bypassed a lot of that expense and those ethical issues.
Learn how to sew
I’m in awe of my mother’s sewing. It’s neat and precise and she’s made me more than one incredible outfit.
But the best thing she does with her sewing is mending clothes. Thanks to her, I’ve extended the life of some of my clothes by a considerable amount. Sometimes years.
Learning how to sew on buttons, patch up jumpers, and repair knee holes has saved me hundreds of dollars and helps the environment at the same time.
Here are the stats:
More than 8 million Brits throw away repairable clothes.
Only 36% of Brits will repair clothes when they break.
33% don’t know how to sew back on a button.
350,000 tonnes of clothes are thrown into landfill every year.
Mending clothes is a simple skill, one that can save you thousands of dollars and tonnes of waste over the years.
My mother knew it was a skill worth learning. And now I do too.
Something to read this weekend
3 articles from my collection (paywall-free)
23 of My Readers Told Me What a Simple Life Looks like for Them and It’s Fascinating
4 Ways I Spectacularly Fail at Simple Living (And What You Can Learn from My Mistakes)
3 of the best articles I’ve read this week
Why I Deleted (Almost) All of My Social Media - Niklas Göke
I Didn’t Buy Anything for One Hundred Days. Here’s What I Learned - Eric Weiner
The Secret To Building Wealth? Not Giving A Shit What People Think - Tabitha Diaz
In honor of my Greek friend staying with me in Portugal this weekend, I’m saying ευχαριστώ or efcharistó for reading!