I'm melting, I'm melting...

I nearly had a Buy Less: Live more meltdown yesterday.

I had had a particularly tiring, upsetting day and to top it all had caught hubby's man flu. I desperately wanted to go home for a nice hot bath and the oblivion of sleep, but was due to be at university for the evening (not having done any of my preparation!). On my way there I went through Marks and Spencer (the quickest route through the tube station) only to discover they had a massive sale on - tops, skirts, jumpers etc from only £5!!!

I wanted to shop. I NEEDED to shop. But I resisted and restricted my spending to a £1 cup of fairtrade coffee from the uni canteen. I didn't feel much better for it though.

How long to go??

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Lent crisis number 1

Well, we're a week and a half in and things seemed to be going fairly smoothly on the old Buy Less: Live More front.

Until of course I ran out of face wash and my nice shampoo. I have other face wash and other shampoo but nothing as good or as nice. Yes, I am vain. I admit it. But one thing I'm very conscious of is my bad skin and, whether or not they actually make a difference, posh toiletries make me feel better about myself. I suppose they sell me the hope that if I use them in the right way, and for long enough, they'll make me look better. I know it's a vain hope, but I'm sure I'm not the only victim of the cosmetics marketing machine.

But for the rest of Lent I'll be using my skanky cheap shampoo and rifling through my samples for decent face wash (you know those samples you get in magazines? I'm the kind of tragic person that collects them).

So, how important is looking and feeling good? Are there better ways to boost one's self esteem?

Your thoughts please...

xxx

Buy Less Live More

What are you giving up for Lent this year?

Why not join us and pledge to curb your spending and shrink your carbon footprint?

Buy Less: Live More is a Lent experiment - we want to explore different ways of living life to the full, while treading a little more lightly on the planet we call home.

Visit http://www.buylesslivemore.org.uk to sign up for daily emails during Lent.
If you are a Facebook member join the Buy Less: Live More group and invite your friends to get involved.

Lent in Advent?

Lent 08 starts really early, in fact on February 6th. So amidst the Christmas carols, tinsel and parties some of us at Methodist Church House are getting ready for Lent! One season of preparation and penitence clearly isn't enough!

The Methodist Church was so impressed with our efforts last year that we are going to follow up No New Shoes with a campaign called 'Buy Less : Live More'.

During Lent people who sign up will receive a daily email with 2 challenges/ideas one about buying less and one about 'living more'. So as well as reducing your carbon footprint by getting off the consumer treadmill, you can live life in all its fullness.

We are producing Buy Less: Live More 'credit cards', which you can put in your wallet to remind you to think twice before shopping. These will be available from www.mph.org.uk free (plus postage) in the New Year. We will have some pages on the Methodist Church Website and a Facebook site, where you can sign up for email updates - and we'll keep posting on No New Shoes. Watch this space for more details.

Fair trade cotton

It's getting colder, so I went to purchase me a vesty top thingy at M&S. It's not just a vest - it's a fairtrade cotton vest (in fact i bought 2 - one black and one white, layers are so helpful at insulating one). So if you are in the mood for winter warming - give M&S a try and go out with the warm glow of knowing your vest is made from cotton that gives farmers a fair deal.

In the Bag!

Okay, I don't always remember to take non-plastic bags with me to the supermarket, but mostly I do. Or I take the old plastic bags from the cupboard under the stairs (or the European used plastic bag mountain as it is also known), so they get used a few times before their 400 year wait until nature finally wins.

'Bag for Life' offers at our supermarche are a good idea - but much, much, much better is to use fairly traded jute bags, available from Traidcraft, New Internationlist and other such wonderful places.

I support the campaign to emulate Ireland and begin charging for plaggy bags - we'll soon start to remember to take our trendy fair trade environmentally friendly bags with us. And anyway - your wine bottle's much less likely to fall out of a sturdy jute bag than a thin, poorly made, environmentally disastrous carrier.

visit www.green-england.co.uk/plasticbagpetition to add your name to those who support 'old bags' (you know what I mean) or visit www.mrdf.org.uk for more ideas about tackling climate change.

No mobile means poverty, say children

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2007/sep/19/mobilephones

Seriously??!!