I love being able to donate back to my community when decluttering my own home. Within my neighborhood, there are several homeless shelters and groups that consistently post about the items they are needing. It was helpful to look through their list, and then go through my items to see if there was alignment. I ended up donating bedding, beach towels, kitchen utensils, and raingear!

At this current point in the year, flooding is the biggest concern. With that in mind I have planted perennial ferns and removed invasive species like Ivy to protect the native species in my yard.

Ethical investing means something different to a lot of people, but the important thing is to understand what you are invested in so you dont invest in things that dont align with your values. This was a good reminder to update my 401k contributions into funds that align better to my social values.

In order to become more resilient to changing water situations, we need to lessen our use of water. The biggest way I have started saving water is scraping my dishes instead of rinsing and putting them directly in the dishwasher. This summer I plan to only water my garden during the coldest parts of the day.

By sticking to a weekly meal plan I was able to reduce my cost by eating out less and also tried to use ingredients in several meals so that we did not have any food waste.

I could make the biggest impact in my carbon footprint by installing a heat pump for my house and improving the insulation in my old, poorly insulated house. These steps are cost-prohibitive right now. The change I am willing to make right now is to increase my biking/walking for transportation. Yesterday I walked to the library to return a book- a good start!

It is a bit more difficult to put this thought into purchasing decisions. I wasn't perfect. Today I got coffee on my way into work. I knew I wouldn't be able to check that box today, but the "want" part of my brain took over. I do believe that over-consumption is a really large contributor to our global warming disaster. It's so easy to click "Buy Now", but so important to think about that purchase first. I think this practice will help me to do just that.

I knew this one was really going to be a challenge (which is why I did it on almost the last day!) The only waste I had during the day was a poo bag from when I took my dog on a walk - but I'm not sure how I could have avoided that.
When I was doing this, I did really take stock of all the single-use plastics I have in my household...esp fruits, nuts, veggies, etc. So, I'm going to seek out a good place to start buying those in bulk and will take my own containers when I do so.