Green and thrifty books to help you save money

Making environmentally conscious adjustments to your life can be a great way to save, especially during a cost-of-living crisis. Mending your clothes, cooking on a budget, and growing your own vegetables, helps the environment whilst keeping your money firmly in your wallet. Our Green and Thrifty BorrowBox shelf has lots of books with tips to help you save money and reduce your impact on the planet. Here are our top recommendations.

Gardening

The Urban Vegetable Patch: A Modern Guide to Growing Sustainably, Whatever Your Space

Use this guide to learn how to make the most of your space to set up your own vegetable patch, whether you have a windowsill, garden, or even an allotment. Discover how to grow organic vegetables, reduce plastic and water usage, and a greener way of living.

Wild Your Garden: Create a Sanctuary For Nature

Join the rewilding movement and make the world a little greener. Jim and Joel Ashton, The Butterfly Brothers, show how to create a lush garden that boosts local biodiversity. Wild Your Garden will help you make a difference to local wildlife and your carbon footprint without any need for acres of land or specialist knowledge.

The Wildlife Gardener's Almanac

Explore the year and find out what plants and creatures to expect each month. The Wildlife Gardener’s Almanac has plenty of ideas, tips, and checklists to help you increase your garden space’s biodiversity. It even has instructions on how to complete projects like making a wildlife pond, building a nest box, and creating a herb bed.

Clothing repairs

Visible Mending

Learn how to pick up a needle and rediscover the forgotten techniques and the joy of mending. This book explores how mending returns value to something while teaching you how to mend a range of different fabrics. With illustrated step-by-step instructions, the projects in this book show how to sustainably add a personal touch to your garments.

Mend it, Wear it, Love it: Stitch Your Way to a Sustainable Wardrobe

Packed with detailed illustrations and instructions, Mend it, Wear it, Love it will teach you how to mend clothes quickly. It also will help you learn about the environmental impact of fast fashion. This guide will show how you can care for your clothes in a creative and sustainable way, so you can enjoy them for longer.

Loved Clothes Last: How the Joy of Rewearing and Repairing Your Clothes Can Be a Revolutionary Act

Grow a more sustainable wardrobe and reduce your carbon footprint by making your clothes last longer. This book is filled with practical tips to protect your clothes and help the environment. There are so many skills to learn, like handwashing, steaming and spot cleaning clothes, sewing, and crocheting. Loved Clothes Last is a great place to get started.

Cooking

The Thrifty Baker: Shop, Bake and Eat on a Budget

Learn how to bake while saving money on ingredients and cooking equipment. Using this book’s energy-efficient recipes, create delicious dishes like peanut butter cake and butternut squash curry buns, all without spending a fortune.

Feed Your Family for Under a Fiver: Over 80 Easy, Budget-Friendly Recipes

Mitch Lane created his recipes to help inexperienced cooks feed their family on a budget. Learn to cook sausage gnocchi, veggie Thai green curry and even Oreo truffles in under 30 minutes using common ingredients. After all, feeding your family for a fiver doesn’t have to be boring.

Broke Vegan: One Pot

With over 100 vegan recipes using cupboard staples, these recipes will have you easily cooking delicious meals whilst saving money and helping the planet. With everything from hot and sour noodle soup to apple and marzipan galette, there are so many delicious meals to create and enjoy.

Budgeting 

Save Yourself Happy: Easy Money-Saving Tips for Families On a Budget

Gemma Bird offers suggestions for how to save money even during the cost-of-living crisis. Her tips range from ideas about everyday habit changes to achieving your biggest goal, with chapters on everything from financial security to the food shop.

Make Every Penny Count: Budgeting Tips and Tricks to Keep More Money in Your Pocket

Authors of the popular money blog, Skint Dad, show you how to make, save, and manage your money. From tips on saving money while eating out, side hustle ideas, and ways to cut costs at home, this book will give you the resources and inspiration to make every penny count.

Thrift Your Life: Cost-Of-Living Hustles to Waste Less, Save More and Live Well

Thrift Your Life is full of practical hacks ranging from the well-versed and practical to the downright outrageous. This guide will help you build a toolkit to change your mindset, shop smarter and, have great days out all on a budget.