5 Baby Steps to a Sustainable Lifestyle

When did living sustainably become trendy?!

Think about it.

There’s zero waste, low waste, eco-friendly, and more…

You have to watch out for this ingredient, but not that one. Don’t forget to worry about greenwashing. Are these premium products even actually green?

Living sustainably just ends up seeming complicated and confusing.

When you start overthinking, you can’t act.

Plus if you’re a teensy bit of a perfectionist like me, you don’t want to start until you know you’ll do it right.

Here’s what I hear from people who want to live more sustainably, but are stuck in the noise.

• “I’d love to use non-toxic products, but I don’t know where to start!”
• “It seems like there are no right answers. What one person recommends is what another says to avoid!”
• “I’m so busy and tired and drained. I don’t have time to do the research for every little thing. I just want to know what to do.”
• “Green products are so expensive! I’m not interested in dropping $100 on something to replace my $2 spray cleaner.”
• “I don’t want to have to replace everything I own to go green. Can’t there be things I’m already doing that are good?”

Short answer: yes! Absolutely! I am certain you are already doing some sustainable things and I would love to help you know what to keep doing and where can you add some small tweaks to get a big impact.

My passion is to help beginners take baby steps to live more sustainably.

As someone who loves to research, it takes me days to buy a product like dishwasher detergent.

Why?

I want to find the best companies that genuinely care about the environment and my wallet.

I am so tired of brands telling you they are “green” or “natural” when their products look about the same as the stuff we bought before!

As a blogger who knows that my message is spreading far and wide, I take this seriously. I will only recommend brands, products, or strategies, I really believe are the best choice.

Plus…I have to say that sustainable living and frugal living overlap in many, many ways.

You can absolutely live a sustainable life without buying luxury green products.

In fact, you’ll likely find that you’re saving money by using high-quality, efficient products that are made to last.

Sustainable living should be sustainable for the earth and for you.

It should be easy.

Maybe even boring.

It should never be trendy, although there are some ways that brands are bringing back all the old school ways people used to do things but updating them for 2022.

But the fact of the matter is that if these shifts are not…

• easy
• quick
• effective
• affordable

You’re probably going to go back to your old habits.

The planet doesn’t need perfectionists.

The planet needs people willing to take a look at their lives, keep what works, and make some simple, practical shifts for the things that don’t.

It’s that easy.

And you just need 5 days.

Less than a week!

In my 5 Days to Green email challenge, I’ll share a handful of the most important ideas and skills in sustainable living.

You’ll learn my 5 baby steps to a sustainable lifestyle…

• The most sustainable products (hint! you already know all of them!)
• Why thrifting is so important
• The one material to reduce from your life
• Effective & affordable natural cleaning products to replace your conventional ones
• How to recover up to $1,500 from your trash can

In a nutshell, I’m going to help you know where to focus your attention and time.

For just 5 days, I’ll share a mindset, story, or strategy for you to consider. I will also give you a small, quick practice that you can do in just moments to implement these strategies into your daily life.

It’s totally free and ALL of my strategies come from my own experiences and research.

Will 5 days turn you into an eco warrior?

We know that habits take what..21 days to set?

How can 5 days do anything meaningful?

Well, I know that you’re busy.

You want to live more sustainably.

You want to eat healthier.

You want to make sure the little things you do every day add up for good, not bad.

But, you don’t have a ton of time.

Maybe you’re juggling kids, pets, work, family issues, chronic stress, medical issues, etc.

I totally get that. The absolute LAST thing I want to do is overload you.

Because again, getting overwhelmed stops the wheel from moving forward.

It halts all this good progress you’ve already started making!

What if we could do just make this easy?

What if you just learned 1 or 2 (or 5 🙂 ) strategies that actually worked without feeling like I’m pelting you over the head with a biodegradable pool noodle?

I don’t want to bombard you with emails for a month.

I don’t want to stress you out more.

I want to simplify this whole process into 5, easy-to-digest chunks.

I know my tips are valid because I’ve used them myself to save money, reduce harmful products, and start working towards a zero-waste lifestyle.

Hamburger Helper to homegrown tomatoes

First off…hello! My name is Rachael. I’m an avid gardener who loves to cook from scratch every day. I’m also frugal, always looking for the easiest, simplest, and most financially friendly solutions.

I love to collect antique crocks, mason jars, and mixing bowls. Our house is filled with thrifted furniture we’ve brought back to life.

But, I grew up in a plastic-wrapped world eating Hamburger Helper for dinner. All of my body care, beauty, and cleaning products came from the grocery store in a wide array of colors and scents.

My grandparents were born in the 1920s and I always wondered why people used to live differently in the past. How did they get their food? Find clothes? Clean their homes?

Why and how did everything change to the highly commercialized and pre-packaged world we have today?

Blogging & Farmers Markets

About a decade ago, I started blogging in the real food, natural lifestyle community. I let that blog fade, but I learned SO much about traditional foods and holistic living.

I started shopping at farmers markets, buying beef tongues, and trying to grow my own food.

In 2014, I volunteered at a farmers market once and then was hired to work there! I went from the market assistant to market manager and spent over 4 years of my life in that world.

That’s where I met local farmers and sat in meetings discussing the politics of kale and honey. It was so eye-opening and exciting!

For extra cash, I started harvesting on local farms during the summer and those experiences have influenced me deeply. Since then, I started gardening in earnest.

I learned how to make jam and pickles. I started drying homegrown herbs and freezing extra tomatoes.

I started making fermented foods like sauerkraut, water kefir, milk kefir, and sourdough.

We started cooking from scratch more and more, simply because it used up what we had on hand or what we had grown. Now we cook from scratch every day.

My husband and I even kept a tiny flock of backyard hens for a while. We had one hen that would try to crow…I can’t even imagine what the neighbors thought.

We love to pick wild huckleberries and blackberries and forage chanterelle mushrooms.

We compost and save seeds for the next season!

I absolutely consider myself a baby homesteader.

But, that’s for a reason.

I think it’s really important to take a look at your values and take actions to align with them. For me, I don’t envision a fancy or glamorous life. I just want to eat good, healthy food. I want to live in community. I want to live in a welcoming, cozy house.

Just like I need my garden to keep growing year after year, I want the earth to be able to keep giving to us and future generations.

If our great-great-great-great-great ancestors could live without a trace, without harming the natural world, then so can we.

We absolutely do not have to live like everyone else and add to landfills.

We can just say no.

We can take tiny actions that give us back our power.

We can reclaim caring for ourselves, our homes, our families, and the land.

We can do that in an apartment or a house or an RV.

Sustainable living is just about being mindful of the resources you are using. You can do that anywhere.

It is not expensive. It is not hard. It is also vitally important.

It’s so important that even if you mess up and fall on your face, you’re still doing great.

It’s time for us to just do something and I promise it’s actually not that difficult.

You’re already doing sustainable things.

Let’s lift those up and then layer in some other things to get you on your way!

Just 5 days.

That’s all it takes to make a shift.

Here’s exactly what will happen:

After you sign up for the free email challenge, I will immediately send you a welcome email.

This welcome email will orient you to the program and help you find some tools to help you in this journey.

Then, every day for just 5 days, I will send you one email with practical tips and a brief action item to jump start your sustainable lifestyle.

You’ll learn my 5 baby steps to a sustainable lifestyle:

• The most sustainable products (hint! you already know all of them!)
• Why thrifting is so important
• The one material to reduce from your life
• Effective & affordable natural cleaning products to replace your conventional ones
• How to recover up to $1,500 from your trash can

After day 5, I will send you a congratulation email with some tips on how to keep your journey moving forward (like joining my private Facebook group!).

You’ll also be subscribed to my email newsletter, which means you’ll get my weekly message to share my new posts, recipes, guides, tips, and more!

This challenge costs a whole $0.

It’s my gift to you to help you jumpstart your sustainable lifestyle.

Check out some of our popular sustainable living resources:

31 Practical & Affordable Ways to Set Up a Zero Waste Bathroom

A Beginner’s Guide to Setting Up a Real Food Zero Waste Kitchen

How to Be Sustainable in Everyday Life

Why You Need to Keep a Well-Stocked Pantry