If any of you appreciate British designers then Vivienne Westwood's 2013 campaign for a Revolution might influence you, here are the 10 principles:
HOW TO JOIN THE REVOLUTION
1) Money is a means to an end, not an end in itself.
2) Quality v Quantity.
3) Buy less, choose well, make it last (we don't want the "latest thing" just for the sake of it). "I never waste money, I spend it" – Oscar Wilde. Maybe you'll give a donation to an NGO or charity.
4) Prepare and cook your own food.
5) Cut out plastic when possible, for instance making a plastic bottle consumes 50 times the amount of water than it contains.
6) Inform yourselves.
7) NGO's: there are thousands, follow one in particular and give your support. You will learn a lot.
8) Consider the responsibility of not having or having children.
9) Take an active part in the Revolution as it starts to build.
10) Engage in art and culture (get off the consumer treadmill; discriminate, don't suck up).
Points 4, 5 and 10 particularly strike a chord with me, and I'm already actively doing these things anyway.
I'm a massive advocate of cooking your own food., which was recently reinforced by living in Barcelona. It was amazing to have access to so many cheap fruit and veg shops, literally on every corner. And they were so helpful, say if you wanted half a watermelon they would chop it and wrap it up for you at no extra cost. I could get a massive bag of different things for 10 euros which would last all week. This convenience, paired with the lack of quality vege meat substitutes meant cooking from fresh every day. :-D awesome! Just planning your meals and cooking from fresh helps when keeping an inventory of what food you have, and this is massively important considering food prices are set to rise by 5% this year. The 'Tonight' programme that aired on the 17th January on ITV revealed that up to half the food we buy is wasted and the average British family throws away upto £680 worth of food every year.
'The fight is no longer between the classes or between rich and poor but between the idiots and the eco conscious' Vivienne Westwood, 2013
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I think what we can all relate too is wanting to save money, and adopting some of these 'revolutionary changes' will surely push us into the right direction.