A MOTHER has told how she ditched shampoo, toothpaste or toilet paper - and saved herself more than £11,000.

Eco-friendly mother of two Zoe Morrison, of Hove, set herself the challenge of saving as much money as possible with a year of frugal living.

Among the challenges she gave up using shampoo, swapped her usual toothpaste for bicarbonate of soda and stopped using using toilet paper for a month.

She also rented a room to a lodger, grew her own vegetables and had solar panels installed on her roof.

Zoe, 36, said: "I really like cleaning my teeth with bicarbonate of soda - although I did have to have a filling after just using it, but I suspect my dentist was looking extra hard. My teeth felt cleaner.

"I tried a range of alternatives to shampoo.

"I went a month without shampoo and I did start to get hair envy of other people.

"I don't use shampoo on my kids.

"They tell you not to use shampoo on babies and that's what made me first start thinking about it.

"I have now gone back to using toilet paper. That one wasn't really a money saving thing but more from the perspective of saving the environment when you look at how much of the rainforests we are losing and how there is so much waste."

Zoe tried a range of alternatives to keep clean without loo roll - and said he favourite was a water pistol - however she concluded the amount of water wasted did not make the switch very economical.

Zoe has given up buying anything new, buys her sons' toys from charity shops and even got a trampoline for nothing off Freecycle. She saved so much she was able to give up her job as an auditor gave up her job.

She said: “I am so passionate about being eco-friendly as it’s not only good for the planet but also for your wallet too.

“Before I changed my lifestyle, I was spending so much cash on green products without really knowing how environmentally friendly they really were or whether I was actually getting good value for money."

Read more of Zoe’s thrifty tips on her blog ecothriftyliving.com