See yesterday’s post for Part 1
Image courtesy of The Green Pen
6. Cook a meal using seasonal, local ingredients, preferably organic
It’s so easy to get to the end of a hard week and say, ‘I’m having that take-away because I have worked hard and I deserve it’. The same motivations can also encourage you to buy ready-made, pre-packed options at the supermarket.
However, in a great many cases, it takes you as long if not longer to heat through these chemically enhanced, over-packed delights, as it does to cook something far more delicious from fresh.
You could save a fortune cooking simple recipes from scratch, using quality, raw ingredients and you don’t have to be a chef to put together a few basic, wholesome meals.
Soups can be really quick to prepare and consider using ‘normally’ shaped vegetables from local farm shops, not the perfectly shaped ones the supermarkets claim we ‘demand’.
Food miles are very important. If it’s been harvested locally, it’s probably fresher and more nutritious than something that has travelled half way around the world.
7. Enjoy the enormous benefits of keeping a few chickens, preferably ex-battery
Following recent high-profile television broadcasts, there cannot be a person in the country that isn’t aware of the plight of the battery hen.
Fantastic people like my friend Jane Howarth at the Battery Hen Welfare Trust, liberate thousands of these delightful birds. If you offer a home to a couple of ex-batteries, you are not only giving them a wonderful chance of a real life, but you will decrease your stress levels by untold amounts by simply spending a little time watching them in the garden.
Of course you also get to enjoy the delicious benefits of fresh, free-range eggs every day too.
They’re very simple to look after, you can build a run on an absolute budget and you’ll be giving Jane another great reason to do her next rescue.
See Chicken Out! for details of Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s campaign.
8. Hand-make a simple card for the next birthday or event on your calendar
This is a shocking exercise. You’ll need a pen and paper.
Write down the number of your immediate family members. Multiply it by 2 (representing their birthday and Christmas). Add at least another 12 (representing one a month for birth, death, anniversary, driving test etc). Multiply it by £2.50 (average cost of card and postage).
What’s the figure?
Now, do bear in mind you’ve not allowed for a single friend, or chums of your children, or neighbours, the list goes on and on.
You can save a fortune by making your own greetings cards and you will create far more of an impact with the recipient, because you have taken the time to create something personal.
Made in batches, you can do a dozen at a time quite easily and they are also a great way to get the family around the table for a giggle at your ‘Blue Peter’ efforts!
9. Tonight, turn the television off, switch the radio on and play a few games and talk
Family mealtimes are fragmented affairs these days. Many are spent with a tray on a lap, watching a bit of ‘relaxing’ telly and are very rarely spent as a complete unit talking to each other.
Make tonight different!
Here are the rules. Start off with a simple meal, everyone firmly invited to attend at the same time, involve chairs, a table and place settings for all!
No TV allowed, even as background noise. The silence will either deafen you, or inspire you all to start talking about your day. What have the kids done today at school, who is going out with whom, what are the plans for the weekend, what might be nice to plan as a family? The topic list is endless.
After dinner, pop the radio on and get a game out. Scrabble, cards, monopoly, hangman, it’s not important what you play. This exercise is simply about pulling the family back together, getting some dialogue going and realising there is more to life than the telly!
10. Book a half-day off work to spend entirely with someone you love
The concepts behind downshifting are simple.
The more money you spend, the more time you have to be out there earning it and the less time you get to spend with the ones you love.
Once you’ve grasped unlimited potential of slowing things down a gear, you’ll soon feel the benefits of spending ‘proper’ time with the important people in your life.
On your half-day off, you should indulge a special relationship; that doesn’t mean go DIY shopping together either!
Make up a few sandwiches and a flask and go for a nice walk. Enjoy the elements and each other’s company and remember why you fell in love with them in the first place.
Rubbishly yours,
TS x
Tracey - these are soooo great. They really are bringing back all those lovely heart-warming feelings I had when I first read them. Must have been a good couple of years ago xxx
Yep - they say the oldies are the best!
It’s funny, but I feel these tips could have been written today. We’ve been fighting an uphill battle getting people to change their consuming habits and with the pinch, more are doing it because they have to and still others are joining the march because they want to for environmental reasons.
Whatever the reason, it’s great advice so heed it and get started.
….by the way, I’ll mince NO WORDS with tomorrow’s posting….you wait until you see that…
TS x
Games are a great idea, it’s something on my list to do more of.
I love the cartoon at the top - excellent!
I think people are feeling the pinch more each day and as I was rooting through the reduced section of my local shop this morning, I got chatting to a lovely lady who gave me some advice on how to make the best of some cheap mini bread rolls (at their sell by date) by warming them up in the oven. How nice it was to have a chat and share knowledge.
My neighbour gave us a pan of home made soup, she had made too much, it was a delicious lunch with the warmed up rolls. We need more of this neighbourliness and sharing extra / unwanted food with each other.
Love to you all Deb x
Hiya Deb - yes, even stale bread is wonderful - remember a good bread and butter pudding is simple to make so delicious.
A good friend of mine shared an abundance of oranges she’d acquired from another friend - lolol - and a different chum has offloaded some of her pig that came back from slaughter, she’s inundated with it!
Sharing abundance is such a kindness and it makes you feel great too. No doubt, something bizarre and obscure will work its way back from my kitchen to theirs and that’s always a pleasure to do.
Top tip of the day: share the love!
TSx
Hi again Tracey,
I’m slowly working my way through this site you know! lol!! I love these tips. I’ve recently and to a large extent unconcously downshifted myself over the last year… since moving to Italy I’ve gone from full-time mum and childminder (working 5days a week from 7am-6pm some nights!!) to suddenly being a SAHM but both my kids now being in full-time education here! It has been a bit of a shock to the system. I have spent the last year thinking of ways to get back to working and earn my own money because I felt that everyone was judging me as a lazy woman and fighting against being a housewife, a job which I am spectacularly rubbish at. I conveniently forgot I am still trugging away at my OU degree and made a bad job of it last year because I spent so long feeling sorry for myself and my change in circumstances. Recently I have come out the other side of the depression and am feeling content with myself and my way of life. I don’t really care what others think of me and, although it is slightly annoying that my dh sees my lack of ‘gainful employment’ as a licence for him to do bugger-all around the house now, I am beggining to realise that we are actually both lucky that I am at home and that I am no longer stressed. Sometimes you need to spend a bit of time to digest stuff and then look at it in another way. Really I am very lucky and after spending so much time working hard and bringing up pre-school kids it is nice now to know that I can get on with a few small things for myself now…
Hi Indiebird,
So pleased you’re enjoying trawling through the stuff on here - to be honest, one a day is a lot to keep up with for me to write and it’s hard to read all my own personal favourites when THEY do one a day!!!
Dip in and out - best advice.
And I see from your note that you feel the same way about things too. ‘Gainful employment’ - god, the times I’ve heard that expression and laughed my head off….give me time to be with the ones I love anyday. The kids only have one childhood….I want to be a part of it.
Sorry to hear you’ve been feeling down about things tho missus. You must wear your downshifted hat with pride to make so many of these ends (physical and mental) meet.
Sending love for a gorgeous Monday and then just take things in 1/2 daily increments thereon!
Trace x x