So it’s been more than a few weeks since I last wrote about my family’s journey toward living frugally green. I left you hanging just as my husband finally found a new job, and my family was figuring out that saving money and saving earthly resources go hand in hand.
The Next Steps
A lot happened over the next year of our lives. I became pregnant with our second child, and we finally sold our house after 7 months of it being on the market. We moved out of our house and into Jer’s parents house, not knowing where our next home would be, and me 7 months pregnant. We found a new house and moved in a month before I was due, and Brenden was born one month later. It was a huge time of transition and change for us.
But through it all, God was teaching us to trust in Him, and that our lives and our happiness are not based on our stuff, the things we have, house we live in, car we drive, or clothes we wear. It was this change in our relationship with our stuff that really changed the direction of our lives.
Our new house is much smaller than our old house, so we had to let go of a lot of our stuff in order to fit into our smaller home. Of course, we still have a lot of stuff by worldly standards, but we are learning that we are actually much happier living with less. And we have become much more careful about the stuff that we do buy and allow into our home. We continue to try to limit and scale back on our stuff as much as possible, using and appreciating what we already have.
Making Green Changes
As we went through all of these transitions, we began making even more green changes in our lives.
- Homemade dishwasher detergent and laundry detergent
- using cloth instead of paper towels
- hanging our clothes on the line
- cooking more from scratch
- going no ‘poo
- changing our our personal care products
Just to name a few. It was a snowball effect, and once we started making a few changes, I wanted to find ways to make even more and more changes to our lifestyle
I started looking for more resources online for encouragement, help and support. I found a few blogs that were pretty similar to what I was looking for, but a lot of the green blogs I found were just about going green, and not also about saving money. So, I decided to start sharing our family’s experiences on my blog, and Live Renewed became the story of our journey toward living frugally green.
I took baby steps, and worked on small changes until they became habit and second nature to me, before moving on to another change. It has definitely been a process and a journey, and while I have loved everything that I have learned and all of the changes that we have made, I know that we still have a long way to go, and there are lots more changes that we still want to make.
It is my hope and prayer that I can encourage others to understand the importance of living frugally green, being a good steward of all of God’s resources, not just our finances, and making small changes that add up to much larger lifestyle change over time.
I am so honored and blessed that you have joined with me on this journey, and I can’t wait to see what the future holds for our family as we continue to learn and grow and make changes. As well as here at Live Renewed, as we seek to encourage and inspire each other on our journeys toward living frugally green!
And I’d love for you to follow along with us! Please consider subscribing to e-mail updates, or in a reader, to be sure you don’t miss a single post. You can also connect with me on Twitter and Facebook! Is there anything else you’d like to know about my story that I didn’t include here? Please leave a comment and let me know!
How have you made changes on your journey toward green and frugal living? Do you make big changes all at once, or take baby steps, making small changes over time.
Want to Read More?
I just started following your blog, and I am really enjoying it. My husband and I are also going through major transitions in our lives right now, and I too, am trying to live frugally and more green. I refer to your blog often when making changes, thanks for all your great posts!
Thanks so much! I’m so glad you are enjoying reading along!
Please let me know if you have any questions or if there’s anything I can help you with!
~Emily
Hi Emily! I found your blog, I believe, via Michelle’s Frugal Granola blog. I have you in my reader so I’ll probably not comment frequently but I’ll be reading. My husband and I have slowly become more “green” over the last couple of years. But it is certainly a work in progress and sometimes we backslide. As in, right now we are using disposable diapers and wipes with our daughter when I was quite sure we would be cloth diapering all the way. Just couldn’t keep it up with both of us working full time. Any way, I look forward to reading about your journey.
Hi Deb!
Welcome! Thanks so much for following along!
I am definitely all about the baby steps, and just doing what you can and not worrying too much about the rest. Did you see my Frugally Green Confessions Post? We always have things that we can work on and changes that we can make – that’s why it’s a journey! 🙂
So glad to have you as a new reader!
~Emily
I commend you for making such an attempt. My family tries to cut out as much of the harmful things as possible. It makes you wish things were simple, like in the past.