Day 16 Summary (THE COST SO FAR)

Day 16

Today has been a relaxing day full of a breakages, reduced waste and baked goodies. The ice cream is ready from our berries, mousses are done for pudding, Biscuits and more dough made to pacify kids snacking needs and bread crumbs made for the dinner. 

Laundry has been put away and the house is now organised from the weekend. The dog is happy sleeping after her long walk and I am not stressed running around shopping for plastic free alternatives.

So far day 2 of this week I am convinced the organised lifestyle is the best way to go for plastic free living. This whole challenge has been refusing to buy the unnecessary single use plastic's covering our foods & house goods, Living by producing less waste and living a healthier life style.
 Today is day 16 of 31 meaning 15 days left. 

As I have been driving around feeding more CO2 emissions into the environment, reducing plastic waste to landfill, using more recyclable glass and metal (tins),  I have to question is it all worth it. The only real question people are asking is 

"Does plastic free cost more"
*  My answer so far is yes more time as I don't really know where to find alternatives!
*  More time prepping the fresh food but fun with the kids!
* More fresher food being eaten
* More car journeys

Food Expenses
July 19 verses June 19 

2019
Total spent so far in 16 days is??????? £348.79
This might seem excessive but this weeks food is in the fridge plus i'm feeding 6.

2018

Total spent in month June 2019 is????? £544.21 
So day 16 of July I've spent £348.79

If I spend more than £195.51 in the next 16 days this month has cost me more going plastic free so I will keep track of this.

Mousse looks great

Ice cream maker 

Homemade ice cream with blackberry
 and raspberry fruit from the freezer.

The bread machine I up-cycles for £10 from Facebook group
 "Every bit helps"

My nephew decided to prove me wrong about the bread machine and made a perfect loaf by hand, this was after the machine made it home that he showed me this talent of his.

The last biscuit role 

biscuit role cut and ready for the oven for when kids come home from school

Yummy

My confession today was that yesterday I purchased these plastic items. Please don't be disappointed as my overall plan is reuse the bottles. I ran out of washing up liquid and fabric conditioner and I was going to make the 7.3 mile journey to the Eco shop when I realized I did not have enough refill bottles to fill. Also if this family is going plastic free it needs to be planned better and I hope to only visit a shop that is 7.2 miles away from my home once a month. So my plan is to use up these bottle contents and then refill the lot at once.

  

AS YOU CAN SEE FROM THE ABOVE plastic free needs to be a transition in a household, if someone gave me a list of where to buy just what I needed and used this transition would be easy. Every family run their household differently and finding the alternatives to suit my family is still on going so at the moment yes, plastic free is impossible straight away in plastic free July. However it is not completely impossible long term and when i'm looking at my plastic waste today it has reduced massively. Plus I'm not feeding the plastic supply chain any of my usual money which delights me after watching the recent documentary War on plastic and knowing that the plastic producers plan to grow and make more instead of less. 

I will continue this challenge to achieve my plastic free family and I am also looking at ways to reduce my tin can and glass waste within the household to.

Day 15 - Day 16

I would like to apologize for my missing blog yesterday 15.07.19.

Monday's for me are far too energetic as the kids return to school after a weekend of messing the house up, relaxing and lounging around and basically laundry everywhere. Mondays are very much mom job day and the house needs to return to some kind of organisation.

Breakfast has been easy omelettes, pancakes, cereal.
Lunch we had sandwiches and children had lunch at school.
Dinner for the children was Chicken and bacon pasta bake, for the adults we had salmon, bacon, cabbage and sweet potato.
Pudding was homemade snacks

Monday evenings I am a volunteer scout leader, that's why yesterdays blog is being done today, I was just too tired to type after having so much fun with a bunch of great kids.

Also

Monday am, after taking kids to school my friend came round to make more homemade soap, then I had to walk my dog, do housework, laundry and I need to go to the hardware store to get some plumbing  repair items. Guess what PLASTIC only option. I was actually quite proud that I was able to fix the plumbing issue without the hubby, however the nephew did help me with it.

I had to buy the plastic as the broken part
 needed to be replaced because
it had a great big hole in it.

I am still looking for a bread maker and hopefully I will have one today 2nd hand and can start making fresh bread rather than buying bread in its wrappers.

Day 16

Today's dinner we have homemade chicken strips and chips, with a mousse pudding. The children will be helping me make the dinner on their return home from school. I did suffer one issue with the bread crumb making!! My food processor has finally died and I started to panic as the menu had been planned, kids excited, shopping had been brought, money spent....HELP....
Then my wonderful nephew came to the rescue with a brilliant idea that I would have never thought of, we had the most fun laughing our socks off as the bread crumbs crumbled away.

Take a look

The blender worked a treat panic over lol

So then I thought the biscuit snacks that I have been keeping in the fridge are making about 18 cookies per time and I have one of the three dough rolls left. So I thought lets make some more dough to last us until Friday. I opened my baking draw to find my light brown sugar has been used since we have been a baking July family so my next dilemma was "where in the world do I get light brown sugar without the plastic wrap. (answer NOWHERE) 

I did however have dark brown sugar so I set to google for a cooking dough recipe and made the three cookie dough's I need to pacify the snack craving the kids seem to be having at this stage in July plastic free challenge.

   

I will let you know how they turn out and if they are a success with the kids.