Sustainable Food Shopping

Just a quick post this time, but I've been sitting staring at the avocados I always feel bad about buying and thinking about why it is so difficult to buy things that are sustainable and ethical.  It seems so easy to just fall back into the old habits of buying things that don't really align with how we are trying to live at the moment. 

Picture taken from https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-46459714

After re-researching about the emissions, water usage, and general sustainability of the food we eat I felt a lot better about the food choices we're making, especially as greatly reducing your consumption of meat is still the best way of reducing your emissions.  I also felt a lot less guilty about eating avocados (their emissions and water usage isn't great, but is still no where near that produced and used by meat, especially beef) and about eating a plant based diet that has gone a little bit of travelling.  However, whilst we have been picking the best options I would like us to build on that further.

The hardest one is going to be packaging.  I do try and reduce the amount of plastic that comes into our homes, but it seems to be getting harder to find vegetables that aren't all wrapped up.  Not only does that mean bringing home more plastic than I want to, but it also makes it harder to reduce your food waste as you can't just buy only what you need.  Even when I've gone to a greengrocers some of the vegetables are still pre-bagged, but it is definitely much less than in supermarkets which has reminded me that when it comes to buying vegetables it would be better for me to go to the grocers instead.  It's something that I've gotten out of the habit of doing, but could easily pick up again.  On the plus side, and despite not being able to choice the quantity of vegetables that we buy, we are pretty good when it comes to not having a lot of food waste.

Got these from this Etsy shop https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/askingfortrouble

There are also specific styles of food that we like to eat and the recipes we follow don't necessarily have vegetables that are seasonal for us here in the UK.  Whilst the latest research has shown that the distance the food travels isn't the main issue when it comes to carbon emissions, now that we've worked on the other impacts our food could have I'd like to work on the distance it travels as well.  We're pretty lucky in the UK in the fact that there is quite a lot of food that is grown here now and I have a list of what food is in season throughout the year.  Before I had decided I would work out what food was available that month and then work out what we were going to eat from that, but actually I kept finding that a little bit overwhelming.  Now I'm going to do it the other way around.  Once we've decided what meals we want to eat I'm going to look at what vegetables are available then and tweak the recipes to fit that instead.  That should work out a lot better.

So, just a couple of changes that I want to make to how we eat.  Once we've made those into habits than I'll start looking at the way in which we cook our food as that has an impact too, it's just a very small percentage and therefore not the biggest thing to worry about.  Hopefully these little changes are ones that I can make relatively easily.  It should also help us save money as well.

Finding New Recipes

One of the reasons we've been getting takeaway as much as we have is that I, at least, have gotten bored of the food we've been eating at home.  It's not that it's been bad food at all or that there hasn't been variety in what we've been eating, it's just that it's beginning to feel like we're eating the same stuff for a long time now.  A caveat I should probably add to this is that I don't really like cooking, especially if it takes a very long time or uses a hundred dishes.  This does limit the range of things we cook a little.

I have been looking for recipes that are vegan or at least vegetarian to add to our recipe book. However, most of the recipes I've come across seem to either be about making products that are like meat, such as burgers, or contain ingredients that are kind of pricey and aren't the easiest to find.  This is especially true of most of the vegan cook books I've looked at recently.

So, I'm going to keep searching for recipes online which are relatively quick (around 30 minutes cooking time) and simple, but hopefully lets us try different styles of food from around the world.  Most of the recipes I have come across so far have been Asian and we've been enjoying working our way through those flavours.  However, I think I'll need to do a more specific search to find vegan versions of food from other regions.  It might also be good to go back to the Redwall Cookbook to see what I can bring back from that, I seem to remember us enjoying a few of those recipes.

As well as finding more recipes I also want to see if we can incorporate eating more seasonally into our cooking.  This might be a little tricky and I have to admit I don't even really know what vegetables actually grow when, so that'll require a bit more research (I ended up finding these lovely magnets by Asking for Trouble from Etsy) but hopefully it'll just mean swapping the vegetables in the recipes.  We're doing it to be more sustainable, but I also want to do it so that we can get a better idea about what grows when in case we ever get the chance to grow our own food.  I'm also hoping we can start foraging for some of our food as well and that should give us much more of a connection to what we're eating as well.

I'm also thinking about finding a range of side dishes I can make to add a bit of variety to our lunches and which would allows us to make ourselves a sort of Budha bowl style meal.  I have to admit this might have been slightly inspired by all the kdrama we've been watching recently where they always seem to have yummy looking side dishes with the meals they eat. 

Despite how I feel about cooking I do feel that right now I might have actually given myself more work rather than the less when it comes to cooking.  However, I do think it'll be worth it in the long run as we should enjoy our food a little more and it'll stop us spending so much money on takeaways and eating out which we can then put into our savings.  It'll also teach me more about the other flavours that are out there and that should make my cooking better in the long run, especially when I'm making dishes that are basically me just winging it, which are most of them - I never was very good at following recipes. 

Preparing for my Wedding

I'm getting married this year and though it's going to be small in comparison to other weddings, there are still some expectations that mean it's not exactly going to be the wedding we want.  However, we still want to have a wedding that represents us as much as possible and we also have a budget we need to try and stick to.  The budget has meant that we've needed to do a lot of the things ourselves to save money.  So, this is the plan.

Guests

With things being the way they are at the moment with Covid we've decided to just have family who are already based in the UK coming to our wedding.  For everyone else, we'll be streaming the ceremony so that they can watch it from the comfort of their own home.  This will hopefully mean less disruption if we have to return to more restrictions.  It also means we are having a smaller wedding more in keeping with what we want and it reduces the travel miles connected to our wedding.  

For our smaller wedding, we wanted to make the wedding invitations ourselves to add a personal touch.  The cross-stitch pattern is a Pictish design that I've had for a while which comes from the area of Scotland we first met in.  The thread I used is from cross-stitch projects I've been doing since meeting my fiance.  Unfortunately, we didn't have time to make invites for everyone so to add a personal touch to the other invites I hand wrote them and made origami hearts to send with them.

Clothing

I'm planning on making as much of my clothing as possible, which includes the skirt, overskirt, petticoat (I was looking for this in charity shops, but unfortunately haven't been able to find anything), off-shoulder top, shawl, matching face mask, and I'm borrowing my Mum's veil.  I will be using some fabrics I've never sewn with before and I'll have to make up some of the patterns, but I have time and I think I'm going to enjoy the challenges these are going to bring.  I'm wanting to use second-hand fabrics whenever I can and have already been able to source some good pre-loved cotton sheets for the main body of the skirt and top.  I'm still looking for some net curtains or table cloth to make the overskirt with, but hopefully, I'll find that soon.  The plan is to write blogs about each garment so look out for those.

For my partner, we've gotten him a suit that's made out of recycled plastic from Moss Bros.  We're still looking for a shirt for him, which will hopefully be a charity shop find, and I'm hoping to make him a tie that matches my skirt and a face mask to go with his suit.  We'll have to see how much time I have first though.

Food

We didn't want anything overly fancy for this as that's not really our style.  So a nice pub lunch at a lovely pub in a beautiful location is the plan.  We've got a table or two booked at the relatively local Hope and Anchor Inn, which has locally sourced food and drinks.

My Mum is wanting to make a traditional wedding cake for us, but we're also ordering brownies from our favourite bakery - Dammn Good Bakes.  The brownies are a really good size and they're connected to a date we had.

Flowers

I was in two minds about whether we should have flowers or not, especially with the negative environmental and poor employment practices connected with the mass flower production we have now.  However, they are a beautiful thing to have at a celebration so we had a search around to see if there were some sustainable options.  We did actually find quite a few companies in the UK that had more sustainable practices, but we were lucky to find a company that was just down the road from us that sources flowers from local suppliers and is woman-owned, called Wildflower Floristry.  (Side note: the flowers photographed aren't hers.  Just flowers I brought because I wanted some in the flat after all the flower research.)  Best of all they use wildflowers (funnily enough), which are my favourite type, and I'm looking forward to having a bouquet that looks like a wildflower meadow.  For that very reason, we haven't asked for any particular colour scheme for them, apart from as much blue as possible.

They also normally offer vase hire for the table settings, but we've decided to do some charity shop hunting to buy vases so that our guests can take them away with them at the end of the meal.  Lucy, the owner, was really lovely and it's definitely been one of the best, and least stressful, parts of the wedding preparations.

Wedding Gifts

This is a pretty standard one.  There isn't really anything that we want, at least that we can fit in our flat and that is affordable for other people to buy for us.  So instead, we're asking people to donate to charity.  We've set up a Go Fund Me page for this very purpose which has the charities we would personally like to support. 

Favours

This is similar to the wedding gifts in that we wanted them to be a way of supporting charities.  So the favours we brought for everyone are badges from RNLI (with one of my favourite pictures) and wildflower seeds from Wildflower Favours to support the Bat Conservation Trust.

Wedding Day Activities

A day that's all about us and is a big party is not really our thing.  We're also having the wedding in the morning, which would make it a very long party and who has the energy for that.  So instead, we're doing things that are much more us.  This includes a walk along the coast before lunch (weather permitting) and a beach clean afterwards.  We got in contact with Surfers Against Sewage to set up our own beach clean for the day and they have very kindly sent us a beach cleaning kit for everyone to use.

So that's hopefully going to be our wedding.  There are still a few things to organise and work through, but that's most of it done.  Even though this is meant to be an enjoyable occasion I've actually found most of this quite stressful, which is unusual for me - possibly because the idea of being the centre of attention all day is quite off-putting to me.   However, now that I mostly just have to worry about making my clothes I feel that things will get a lot more enjoyable.  At least with that, I get to be creative.

Toiletries I'm Using at the Moment

Trying to ensure that the products that I use on a daily basis are as ethical as possible is still very important to me and a process that I will continue to work on.  Whilst I was in New Zealand there was a lot of research I needed to do as I wasn't familiar with the products there, but now I'm back in the UK it's been a little easier as I've been able to go back to the items that I knew whilst researching others.  These are what I'm using at the moment.

Dental Care

This hasn't changed much since the last time I wrote about the toiletries I'm using.  My toothbrush is the beechwood toothbrush from Georganics, along with their refillable dental floss (old packaging).  I've been able to go back to toothpaste tablets now for my toothpaste, which is not only less wasteful but I actually now prefer using them.  The tin is actually from Eco Living, which we originally got the tablets from and which I would really recommend, but I've refilled them with tablets from Georganics as it was the only place we could get 6 months worth in one go at the time (everywhere else was sold out).  We're not as keen on the Georganic ones, so we'll probably go back to Eco Living once these are finished.  I'm quite happy with how my dental care is at the moment, so I don't see myself needing to change anything any time soon.

Body Wash

I've used soap as my wash of choice for quite a while now, going for companies who produce cruelty-free, vegan, SLS free, and hand made products in recyclable packaging whenever I can.  Right now I'm using the Faith in Nature Lavender Soap.  It's a really nice product and I will buy it again, but really any soap that fits into this criteria would suit me.  I can't see me using anything other than soap from now on. 

Face Wash and Moisturiser

When I'm not wearing makeup I just use the bar soap for my body to clean my face.  I know that's not something people usually recommend, but my face tends to be quite dirty after work so the bar soap is what's needed.  When I do wear makeup I use jojoba and avocado oil with a flannel to remove it, and then second wash my face with the soap.  I can't see me changing this any time soon.

As for moisturising, I still use the oils that I make up myself (my recipe contains jojoba oil, avocado oil, rosehip oil, and a few drops frankincense essential oil).  I mostly get these oils from Naturally Thinking as I like the ethos behind the company (vegan, paraben-free, cruelty-free, grown local products) and I can't see me changing this anytime soon.  I have been finding that I need some extra moisture for my face at the moment, which is not unusual for this time of year.  Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find exactly what I looking for right now (mostly due to lack of stock), so I just picked up this face cream from Aldi whilst I was shopping.  It will help my skin until I can find something else, but it's not really something I would normally choose - though it is cruelty-free.  I'm thinking of something like the Pixi serum I've used before, but we'll see what I can find.

Sunscreen

This tends to change all the time and is based on what I can find with the finances I have at that moment.  Right now I'm using the Holland & Barrett Nature's Block 100% Natural Mineral Sunscreen.  It's vegan, cruelty-free, and (very importantly when it comes sunscreen) reef safe as it doesn't contain Oxybenzone and Octinoxate.  My face hasn't reacted to it, which can sometimes be a problem when I'm using a generic sunscreen on my face, but it is quite thick and does need to be rubbed in quite well.  It also leaves a bit of a white cast on your face.  Otherwise, it's pretty good and I would think about buying it again when I need to get more sunblock in the future.

Lip Care

Right now I'm still using the Ecostore beeswax lip balm I got from New Zealand, and my Mum got me a Burts Bees lip balm for Christmas, so I'll use this next.  Once these are both gone I'm going to look for a lip balm that's in more sustainable packaging.  I don't really put lip balm on during the day, usually just before I go to sleep, so having to use my fingers isn't really going to be a problem for me and means I could probably go for something in a metal tin.

Shampoo and Conditioner

I've now used up the shampoo and conditioner that I brought in NZ and have been looking for products with a lot less packaging.  However, I still want them to be SLS free, hopefully vegan, made in the UK and are cruelty-free.  I had gotten a shampoo bar from Gruum, which I wanted to try once my liquid shampoos were gone, and really liked it.  It cleaned my hair without drying it out and hasn't left that weird waxy layer that some bars do.  So, I decided to order the conditioner as well to see how that works (I've actually never used a conditioner bar before) and it does seem to be working pretty well.  I don't see me changing this any time soon and, even if I don't use these particular products, I think I'll stick to shampoo and conditioner bars rather than liquid versions.

Body Moisturiser

I had started looking for a more ethical moisturiser once mine had begun to run out, but then I realised that I still had quite a bit of jojoba and avocado oil left for items I was going to make but never actually got round to.  These oils do go off so I decided it would be a good idea to use them up.  These were the same oils from Naturally Thinking which I use to make my face oils.  So, after mixing them together into one bottle, I am now using it to moisturise my body.  If I'm honest, it doesn't really give me the full amount of moisture that I need for these winter months, but that has just meant that I have to moisturise much more often than I normally do.  Once this is used up (which might be a while - it's a big bottle) I'll start looking for a thicker moisturiser, similar to the body bar I got and really liked from Lush.  I do have a separate hand moisturiser (also thanks to my Mum), but once that's gone I probably won't get another one straight away and just use my body moisturiser.  Whether I stick to that will depend on how my hands fair, as they do sometimes need something thicker.  In which case I might just get the Welsh Lavender Ltd Farmers' Hand Cream I had before.

Deodorant

At the moment I'm still using a normal deodorant for when I'm at work as I just can't find a natural deodorant that works when I'm doing this amount of physical exercise and I'd rather be able to wash my clothes less.  I do have a more natural deodorant I like by Bull Dog (it's a man's deodorant), but I only wear it on my days off.  This one is still a work in progress and I'll keep hunting until I find a good one.

Hair Removal

Waxing is my usual method of hair removal, but that isn't really an option at the moment, so for now, I'm using wax stripes to remove most of my unwanted hair.  This really isn't the most waste-free way of doing it and I'm hoping to be able to change this as soon as I can by buying a pot of wax with re-useable stripes (once we have a place of our own).  I do also use a razor and, for this, I've been able to be a lot more sustainable as I use a safety razor where I only need to change the blade.  I've recently brought this blade container by the Zero Waste Club that should take up to 300 blades before I can put it in the recycling with all the blades safely inside it, which is an additional plus.  I do want to look into laser treatment for something more permanent (and with a lot less waste), but that will need to wait until our finances are a bit more stable.  

And that's it.  My toiletries are very close to being where I want them to be, with only just a few changes in the future to have a fully functioning, as sustainable as possible 'beauty' /hygiene routine.  I'm hoping it won't take me too long to get there, perhaps just one more cycle of some of the items I'm using, so this time next year I should be able to show a complete routine.  Apart from the deodorant, I think we might still be a little while on that.

Healthy Eating on a Budget (with requirements)

As you know I'm trying to become financially fit this year, and that means budgeting.  We're pretty good at not spending a whole lot of money on unnecessary items, but one of the biggest spends for us is food.   We don't really spend money on items like meat (what with having a mostly vegetarian/ vegan diet), but we do spend much more than we should on things like chocolate, crisps, and fizzy juice.  Which is not only bad for our budget, but not very good for our health either.

There is also the added issue of me needing slightly more specialised food as I'm supposed to be a dairy-free vegetarian (definitely vegetarian, not exactly dairy-free all the time) with as little gluten as possible.  I'm actually quite happy to mostly just have vegetables and naturally gluten-free products, but having dairy and gluten alternatives does allow for a bit more variety in the food we eat.  However, these products do add to the cost.

So, this is the plan for budgeting our whilst still trying to be healthy:

• Keeping to a budget of £50 per week (for 2 people) on groceries
• Use as much whole food as possible as it's cheaper and much healthier for us
• Make as much of our own food as is possible, for the same reason as above
• Shop mostly at shops like Aldi and Lidl as their products are generally cheaper (though I'll have to keep away from those middle aisles).  I am slightly in two minds about this one as they seem to have packaging on absolutely everything.  I will keep looking for alternatives, but I'll stick to this for now
• Only buy a few specialised items to fit my dietary requirements

The biggest issue I'll be facing on this is the little sugar addition I've been developing over the Christmas holidays - ops, and the fact that I've lost all motivation when it comes to cooking.  I'm just bored of most of my go-to recipes I make right now.  I'll be on the search for some new ones, which don't have about 20 ingredients as no one has time for that (or at least I don't), and hopefully, that'll help reset my cooking mojo.

Putting this on the internet also means I have a little accountability now, which should give me more of an incentive to actually stick to it and you'll be able to see if we do by the budget updates I'll be doing throughout the year.  The additional plus is that, as well as saving money, we should actually be a lot healthier as we stop buying so much sugar, processed food, and take aways.  Always good.

Walking on Dartmoor - Zeal Tor Tramway and Avon Dam

 

This is a walk we actually did in November last year but I decided to write about it now as it would be nice to remember a time when we could go outside like this.  Though this walk is a looped one, it uses a couple of longer through walks and an old tramroad and is meant to give you a chance to see historic life on Dartmoor.  It's quite a short 7-mile walk, but as we weren't sure about what the weather was going to do it seemed like quite a good option.  We did find this walk in a book on short walks on Dartmoor (there's also a description of it here), but we decided to actually do it back to front as we preferred the idea of going straight onto the moor and ending with the walk on the surfaced road from the dam. 

The weather did start off pretty well and we were quite hopeful it would hold to the end, but the mist quickly came in and made viewing pretty bad and navigation a little bit interesting.  We did borrow my Dad's OS map to take with us as mine hadn't arrived yet, but neither of us could find our compasses and we ended up using the compass on one of our phones (not advisable at all) to help with some navigation later on.  Not the best idea, but it did get us back onto the right track in the end.

We started the walk by parking at Shipley Bridge, a very busy car park which was difficult to find a space in.  I would advise going pretty early on to get a space, something we didn't do and so had to find an 'interesting' spot.  There are toilets here and a number of industrial buildings which were mainly trying, but failing, to utilise the clay and peat in the area.  First, we followed the road towards the Avon Dam, before heading left on the road to the Avon Filtration Station and finding the point where the Zeal Tor Tramroad connects to this road.  This took a little bit of time as there are a number of tracks, but we were quickly heading up onto the moor.

Unfortunately, the view didn't last longer than about 10 minutes and a nice look at some cows before the mist came down and obscured any of the historic sites we had planned to look at whilst we were walking.  It also made it difficult to navigate off any landmarks and, without a compass to keep us on course, we did end up going a little off course.  However, a good nosy at the map and a look at the phone compass made us realise we had been baring further south than we should have been.  A little change in our orientation meant that we soon came into view of the Eastern White Barrow looming out of the mist and headed straight for it.  We then cut across to the Western White Barrow and Petre's Cross (which doesn't really look like a cross as the arms have been knocked off) we had originally meant to head to before our little detour, before turning east to heading down to the River Avon.

The weather cleared a little at this point which allowed us to get a view of what looks like some settlements visible on Brock Hill, before closing in again taking away any possible idea we might have had of exploring them this time.  

The path down towards the river was pretty obvious and easy to follow, probably due to the fact that it's part of the Two Moors Way, but interestingly slippery.  There is meant to be a crossing further towards the dam as part of Abbot's Way path, but it wasn't particularly obvious so instead, we stayed on the Two Moors Ways and headed over the river using a little clapper bridge.  I love these bridges and it always amazes me that they're still standing after all this time and the amount of use they've had.  We then turned south onto Abbot's Way towards the dam.

This route takes you by the Huntingdon Cross (the original maker for Abbot's Way which was also used by Sir William Petre to mark the boundary of his estate in the mid-16th Century) and by some more settlements somewhere in that mist before you reached the dam and the path becomes a surfaced road.  

As you would expect for a walk on the moor in the mist, most of this path very wet and sometimes quite muddy.  Was definitely happy to have my waterproofs and walking boots for this one.  However, because it was so close, I didn't actually need as many layers as I was expecting.  Once back at the car park we headed straight for the nice food van there to take the opportunity to have a nice hot drink and a cake.  Just what you need after a walk in misty, cold, damp conditions.  This was just a taster of the walking that can be done on Dartmoor and I'm definitely going to be doing more once we can get back out there.

Eating from Redwall

 

When I was younger I absolutely loved the stories of Redwall, by Brian Jacques.  They fitted perfectly into my sense of adventure and my love of animals.  I found them again recently when I was doing some decluttering and introduced them to my partner.  Discussing them with him reminded me just how much food written about in these stories and I had a vague memory that there was a Redwall.  A little bit of research showed that this was true and was followed by a bit of searching to find somewhere that had it in stock, which was found and the book is now winging its way to me.

The recipes are separated into the seasons and it'll be interesting to see if the ingredients are seasonal too.  My plan is to cook at least one recipe a week from the season I'm in at that moment, and I'm hoping this will give me a bit more variety in my cooking which has become a little bit stuck in the rut of late.  As the food is mostly made by mice, moles, etc I think that most of the recipes will probably be vegetarian, which means I'm not going to have to make too many changes to them to make them me friendly - always good.

I did try and find a second-hand copy of this, but without much success.  However, I do expect to keep and use this book for many years to come and so I'm not feeling too guilty about the purchase.  I'm actually quite excited about its arrival and I'm hoping it'll help me get back to enjoying cooking a little bit more.  Searching for this book has also shown me just how many more books there are in the Redwall series now.  I see a lot of woodland adventures, with accompanying meals, in my future.

Paperless Productivity - Toodledo

 

I think I've had a little too much of productivity apps right now so I'm not sure I've been able to give Toodledo as much of a trial as it probably should have had and.  However, I did use it for a few weeks to try and get it a good idea on how to use it so hopefully, I can write something useful here.  I should probably start by saying that I think this is another one that would be good if you're someone who wants a little use a digital form of a bullet diary.

When you first download the app it asks you a couple of questions to help find out how to set it up specifically for your needs - which is a nice touch, as long as you know what the terms mean.

Then you need to log in so that it can sync your information with the website version which is a bit more full-on and that you do actually have to use sometimes because the phone app doesn't allow you to do everything (more on that later).

When the tasks page first comes up you get a whole lot of information on how to use the app and you can go through each part to get a real feel for it - also a nice little touch.

The main menu (on the left) allows you to navigate through each section of tasks (also brokendown in sub-sections so you can navigate to a specific task quickly), notes, outlines (I really didn't use this section at all), habits, and lists.

So let's start with tasks.  These are pretty simple to add and follow what is now a pretty familiar pattern.  You click on the cross button at the bottom right.

Then you type in the name of the task and add any notes you feel you need to keep with the task.

You can then add this task to a folder and add context to it (I used this to say if the task was for work, blog, home etc).  This is one part where I found I had to use my laptop instead of just being able to use my phone.  You can add a folder or context to your task on your phone if one exists, but to create them you have to log in using your computer.

Then you add a start date if you want and due date, and you can also select what priority the task needs to be.  Click on the tick at the top right and you're done.

You can see what tasks are overdue or coming up over a specific time by picking 'Due-Date' from the menu.

Or have a look at the tasks you have in each category using the 'Context' section and these are probably the two parts that I used the most.

The tasks themselves are ordered in importance, which seems to be partly based on the importance you give them when you created them but are mostly due to the due date they have.

I would mostly use the note section for writing up quick shopping lists and which I only really did here to test it out as I normally use the notes app on my phone.  However, if you were wanting to integrate notes with tasks for a project you have going this would probably be perfect as you can add the notes to a specific folder.  As with adding a task note adding it pretty simple and you just click on the cross, type in the name of the note, what folder you want to add it to and then type away.  Clicking on the tick at the top right then saves it.

The next section is Habits (I'm glossing over Outlines because I really didn't look into it) and I used this also as much as the tasks part.  Rather than a number or rating I kept all my tasks as a checkbox as I just prefer that.  The good things about this habit tracker is the chain chain underneath the habits name.  The reason for this is that every time you complete the task it makes the corresponding link in the chain dark and this allows you to see how many many times you have managed to complete this task in the last few days.  I will admit that it is quite satisfying.

Adding is the same as before.  Click on the cross at the bottom right.  Write in the name of the habit and click how you want to show you've completed the task.

Add a start date (though this isn't necessary if you're starting from the day you've added it), how often you want to do the habit and if you want to be reminded.  Then it's just 'Start Habit' and you're off.

If you put in number instead of checkbox then there is this pretty cool thing where you can add the amount of time you have completed the habit in a day and then this progress is then shown on a graph to let you see this progress.  I didn't really feel that it would mean anything to the habits I was wanting to track, but if you were doing something like push-ups or swearing less then this would probably be a good tracker.

The last section is Lists.  I already have lists elsewhere and didn't want to duplicate them here, but I did have a little play around.  

It's actually quite a nice little section and already has a whole lot of list templates already made up for you. 

Like Migraine Log - something I probably should have been tracking a few years ago.  But there's also bucket lists, recipes, reading list, weight tracking, etc and you can creat your own with a little bit of work.

And that's the layout of the app.  I'm not going to lie, it did feel a little bit clunky trying to get around this software on my phone and is probably a lot easier to use on you computer instead.  I would say that the best way to use it is to actually predominantly use the website when you're at home and just use the phone app for when you are on the go.  Which is absolutely fine, but I want something much simpler that I can use directly off my phone.  There was also an issue with it trying to sync from my phone to the website and I kept getting messages that this wasn't happening, but I wasn't too bothered about that.  However, if you are using it in that integrated way then that might be an issue.  I also noticed that I didn't get the reminders coming up on my phone as I did with Memorigi and Tick Tick, and I actually quite liked those.

One little aspect that I liked was the way you could add things to the tasks from another app using the share function.  A couple of times I found webpages I wanted to read but didn't have time right then and easy enough to add it as a task by clicking share and then selecting Task with the Toodledo logo, and there it was.

As I said before, I probably didn't give this app as much of a test as it deserved and could probably do with a little break from these at the moment.  It would be a really good app if you were someone who likes using a bullet journal to organise all your project, thoughts, and tasks, and maybe in the future I'll come back to it if I ever need that amount of organisation.  If that's what you're looking for definitely give this a go, however, I don't really feel I need anything that complicated and so this app didn't really work for me.

I'm going to take a little break from these, but then I'm going to test Habitica.  I've heard a lot of good things about this one.