Linda Cockburn’s Living the Good Life is the diary of a family who decided they wouldn’t spend any money for 6 months. The idea was to be domestically sustainable by generating their own power, growing their own food, harvesting their own rainwater, and not spending money on consumer goods. You can see photos of the house and garden, a list of their restrictions, tables so you can record your own power and water usage, etc at their website.
They weren’t puritans - they made sensible decisions to break their challenge in order to take their son to hospital, to take a break in the middle, and deal with unforeseen events. They bartered their excess fruit, vegies, eggs and home-made cheese for things harder to make themselves, like flour and sugar. But they keep a spirit of adventure, and by the end of the 6 months are healthier and happier.
It’s hard for me not to compare this book to Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, which deals with a similar challenge. Kingsolver is a professional writer, and it shows in her lyrical descriptions. Cockburn isn’t quite in the same category, but she has the same infectious enthusiasm and can-do attitude, and the book is an enjoyable read because of it.
Cockburn’s book gives details of their food crops, their chooks and goat, the decisions they make, the funny things her husband and kid say. There are segments explaining Australian facts about water use, plastics, farming and so on. At the end of each chapter, her husband Trevor writes up his impressions of the month.
At the halfway point, Trevor has a rant about how Linda is making the challenge sound easier than he thinks it is. It’s a very honest look at how frustrating it can be to restrict yourself, especially when the people you’re friends with and work with just don’t get it. Trevor chooses to challenge himself because it’s the right thing to do, not because it’s the easy thing to do.
I really enjoyed the honesty with which Linda and Trevor put forward the details of their lives. It was great to read an environment book written for an Aussie audience: the statistics were useful and relevant, it’s easy to understand the weather and culture they deal with, and they’ve got that dry-as-dust Aussie sense of humour which can find a joke in the worst situation.
At the end of the book is an assessment of how their health, finances and environmental footprint have been improved, and how the challenge has changed their perceptions of life.
Recommended?
I’d recommend Living the Good Life to anyone who’s day-dreamed about chucking their job and becoming self-sufficient, anyone who’s a keen gardener, and anyone who enjoyed Kingsolver’s book.
I’m aware that my life could be more sustainable than it is, and books like this give me good ideas about how I can move forward. We started a vegie patch because of Barbara Kingsolver - this book has made me think about getting a rainwater tank. I’m not going to stop spending money for 6 months, but I’ve definitely been planning ways to reduce my consumption, and Linda Cockburn has put plenty of ideas forward for how to do that.
But I’ve got some ideas about how you can negotiate your way to a simpler Christmas.