Simply Sarah

Backyard Composting: A Busy Mom’s Guide

June 1, 2019 by Sarah Leave a Comment

After polling a bunch of you on Instagram I was shocked to learn that some of the cities you’re in don’t have a city composting program. All that food waste is just being thrown out!
To help minimize all of this going into the landfill I decided to put together some info for you on how to set up and maintain a backyard compost.
I do live in an apartment so I had to do some research to find the best and EASIEST way for you to to be able to do backyard compost without feeling overwhelmed. Honestly, I was pleasantly surprised at how easy the whole situation really is.
Among my sources I got amazing info from an old student of mine, Emma, Who has been all about compost as a kid as well has Lauren Maris, the Environmental Program Specialist for the City Of Red Deer. Im so thankful for their willingness to share their expertise and resources with me to help some of you!

Let’s dive in!

DIY Dry Shampoo

May 5, 2019 by Sarah Leave a Comment

Dry Shampoo… A busy Moms holy grail product.

There are so many brands & versions of this out there for us to choose from. Unfortunately, Most of our options are in aerosol sprays.
I am not too keen on spending lots of money on aerosols so I try to find alternatives where I can.
Since our year plastic free I found a few options for DIY dry shampoo’s and have tried most of them. After testing a bunch, I decided to make my own concoction and adapt it to my brown hair. Since 2014 Ive been using this recipe and love it! [Read more…]

3 easy ways to be more Eco-Friendly

March 30, 2019 by Sarah Leave a Comment

“We don’t need a handful of people doing zero waste perfectly. We need millions of people doing it imperfectly”

-Anne Marie Bonneau, Zero Waste Chef

I feel this quote so much!

I think a lot of people are turned off of making environmentally friendly changes to their lifestyle because they get overwhelmed and think they need to make all these drastic changes to make any sort of impact.

If you’re an all in and go type person, amazing! You’re doing great.

But for those of us who like to dip our toe in first before taking a swim I’ve put this small manageable list together. Hopefully it’ll help you make small changes that you can handle and possibly build your confidence in becoming even more green.

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DIY Reusable baby wipes

March 6, 2019 by Sarah Leave a Comment

When I was pregnant with Mia, Matt and I decided to try and reduce our waste as much as possible. We do cloth diapers and wanted to do reusable wipes as well.

Over time we’ve realized it was easier for us to have disposable wipes in the diaper bag for outings but when we’re at home we use reusables.

They are insanely easy to make and keep at home. We have a special set of cloths set aside for bum wipes and they are not used for any other purpose. [Read more…]

How to save money on groceries

January 25, 2019 by Sarah Leave a Comment

Since Mia was born we decided that I would be a stay at home mom for a year or two. My job is contract work so I didn’t get maternity leave so we were a single income family of three. Moving provinces was also not cheap so we have had to be extra frugal.

Grocery shopping can be overwhelming with kids and since we started feeding Mia solids it took some trial and error to find something that worked for us.

Like I always say, there’s a million right way to do things but here I’ll show you what worked for our family. [Read more…]