The end of living lagom?

So, here we are. Six months down the line from making our Live Lagom New Years resolutions. It's been an interesting six months, our shopping trip, the changes we've made with the items we purchased from Ikea, the changes we've made in other ways.

We wanted to live more comfortably, which involved replacing the curtains or blinds we had in most of the house and draught proofing the windows and doors. We also wanted to reassess our food storage options and to make good use of the rechargeable batteries and charger we bought. I pledged that I wouldn't buy a single normal AA or AAA battery for the duration of the Live Lagom project.

We had completely underestimated how cold and uncomfortable our poor choice in curtains and blinds was making the house. For the first winter in four years our thermostat sat at a constant 21º, no turning it up to 23-25º and no sitting around the house in half a dozen layers. We were hoping this would be reflected in our gas bill, but unfortunately, it arrived using estimated readings instead of the readings we submitted. Once I have a revised bill I will update with numbers.

We bought various sizes of Ikea 365+ dry food jars and Korken glass jars, all of which have actually been used for their intended purpose instead of sitting there gathering dust. It's allowed us to start buying rice, pasta, flour, cereal and other basic food items in bulk as we know the damp won't affect them.

We returned to Ikea two months ago to purchase more packs of Ladda rechargeable batteries, which means that we have actually made it to the end of the project without purchasing a single standard AA or AAA battery.

One thing we have started doing when we take batteries out of the charger is to write on a piece of paper what item they were going into. We found ourselves trying to work out where all the original batteries we had purchased had gone (controls, toys, wii remotes, etc) as when you've lots of toys in the house it's hard to remember which ones do or don't take batteries. We've now accounted for all 40 of the batteries we've purchased, so know that if we need to buy more of them, we're buying them because we need them instead of having lost all the originals.

Out of the things we purchased the storhögen battery charger, the Ladda batteries and the stabil saucepan inserts have been our favourites. They are the items I've raved about and recommended to friends, the things that we've purchased more of since our initial shopping trip and the things we will replace as the originals

We've really enjoyed taking part in the whole project, researching what we wanted to get out of it, using the items we purchased and being part of the Live Lagom facebook group means I've picked up a lot of hints and tips over the last few months than mean we've been able to make changes elsewhere. However, my favourite part has been the opportunity it's given me to show my children that even small changes can make a difference.

It's that that we will carry on in the future, taking part in the project introduced us to a concept we'd never heard of before, but it's given us the chance to not only change our current living circumstances but to hopefully make a difference to the impact our children have on the world.