What's wrong with driving a golf?

I drive a Yaris for the same reasons - and cop the same judgement, especially now I'm having a second child. Everyone here seems to think two kids means you need an SUV. I use a shampoo bar now to avoid plastic bottles (and I love it!), I make my own laundry powder and we try to be meat free for several meals a week. Our council has just started collecting food scraps in the green bin, so that's awesome because we suck at compost.

-I use the water from my washing machine to water my yard
-we don't buy bottled water and take water with us everywhere
-don't use plastic bags..even have reusable fruit and veg bags
-for short trips I try to walk instead of drive my car

We are on level 5 water restrictions where we live. Water has become very important. We are on 3 minute showers and I collect our shower water in buckets to water my garden. We all make a conscious effort to turn the tap off when brushing teeth, washing up, doing dishes. We compost, grow veggies and feed scraps to the chickens. I’ve switched to cloth napkins and metal straws and use reusable produce bags.

Dont buy bags

I’ve been composting for a few years

Have been using green bags for about 15 years, long before single bag use ban. Some check out chicks really hates loading my bags 😂

I use reusable fruit and vegie bags instead of the single use ones.

I don’t line my bins with bags. Anything biodegradable that I can’t compost goes into plastic bags I save like bread bags, and I don’t throw it out until it is full.

Soft plastics I save for the RED recycle bin at the supermarket

I now avoid shopping centres because of the temptation to spend on stuff I don't really need, and that is so often rubbish. I too love op shops, because the stuff is pre-loved, but I try to avoid them now because I really feel I don't need any more stuff.
But most of my cutlery has come from op shops, and my tools from weekend markets, or Facebook marketplace.

I never bought the dollar milk because I disagreed with driving down farmers incomes, and it seemed the height of hypocrisy for supermarkets to pay them so little, and then try to redeem themselves by publicly raising money for farmers. Of course you would never know how that money is distributed.
Like you I buy Australian made where I can, to support our own people. And whole fruit, not fruit juices that are all made of reconstituted fruit pulp from overseas.
I grow some of my own vegetables where I can, but I too had a totally dry lawn until the recent rain. But I did deep water my expensive trees a couple of times to save them.

I am becoming more conscious of the environment, and having a smaller carbon footprint, so make a lot of choices differently now. Like I compost absolutely everything, including toilet rolls. Have round home clothes for housework and gardening that I wear til they fall apart, and only a few good outfits for going out. About 4 pairs of shoes, One handbag only, with lots of compartments so I know where everything is, so I don't lose my car keys or mobile.
My car is 12 years old, a hatchback into which I can stuff everything, and its solid and safe. I will drive it until it falls apart.
Maybe I love simplicity because life seems to feel so complex and demanding these days.

tbh We’ve been forced into giving a shit.
We are now on tank and solar. So every bit counts and we value water so much more, and energy. We were so wasteful connected to town.
And we don’t have garbage service so I’m very very conscious of rubbish now. We take the bins down the hill every 2-3 weeks.

Before moving here though when hubby and I were just us we never had two cars. We didn’t even have a car for 3 years. Then we only had a scooter between us for 6 years. We’ve only ever taken what we needed.
But have realised since moving here how wasteful we’d been.

My kids have always gotten mostly buy swap sell presents, even though we can afford new I only buy new when unavoidable to get that product.

We now have two cars which still annoys me. But we drive them till they break.
We take back our cans and farm 40% of our own food and buy or swap with neighbours a further 10%.

We have a small food stall on property that had a box of organic produce for $40 that includes a swap option. We have a large loyal customer base and I feel like that limits the mass farming.

We also raise our own cows and sheep and deep freeze and sell the meat. They are only ever homekilled when it becomes the human thing to do. So all our meat is our own and we know it’s been as ethical as possible. We do sell/giveaway the meat too. We use our 5 acres as best we can.

Doing something small is better than doing nothing 🌏