4 Easy Ways to Be a Freegan

Yard Sales & Jelly Jars

I grew up in the 80's, the "material age," and it's so nice to see the world catching up with the way I was raised. I can remember scouring yard sales and thrift stores with my mother as a kid, and her excitement at uncovering an old piece of furniture she was sure would be perfect after a relatively cheap facelift. Buying new was so rare, I have vivid memories of the few purchases our family made: a pool, a Macintosh computer, a car, a TV. (The old pool got replaced just 3 years ago. The TV is still serving me well 22 years later.) But the best memories I have came from our jelly jar. Every year, my family would religiously save every penny of change that we received. At the end of the year, my Dad would roll and count the money, and we would have a family meeting to decide where we would vacation with the proceeds. That jelly jar took me to Disney World, paid for my first airplane ride, gave me my first glimpse of the Atlantic AND the Pacific, showed me the Grand Canyon and the Rocky Mountains. It took me camping and whitewater rafting, bungee jumping and parasailing, to the top of the Statue of Liberty and to the foot of the Horseshoe Falls. It really is amazing how wonderful life can be when you opt to LIVE rather than consume!

Jessica of OH @ Jul 20, 2009 10:02:16 AM

not quite freegan

I did this for so long that people started avoiding me. I have since modified my life to be an opportunist, rather than any strict regimen. For some items, the carbon foot print of driving to pick it up and finding it useless is greater than the actuallity that you wouldn't buy it new in the first place. There are plenty of false eco-saving programs out there, being that it takes more to implement them, than is saved in the long run. For example, household tool library program at Berkeley: most tools can be found so cheap (screwdrivers, sockets, drill and bits, power saw) that very few tools merit driving to and from a few times a year. Perfectly good keyed chuck drills can be found for $5 at flea markets, $10 for a 7" power saw. worm drive saws are selling for $30 since the introduction of lighter saws (mags). screwdrivers and hammers and such can usually be found at garage sales and such for under a buck.

Here's an energy saving tip for those with electric kitchens, there are re-use paper and plastic plates and bowls. These are power zero when microwaving. Any plate or cup that gets warm to the touch in a microwave is consuming power. Serve on a regular plate. Electric resistance heating is the most wastefull of all the cooking methods.

It's still amazing to me how much yearly income is wasted on froo-froo items.. The whole energy problem could be solved if the Chinese would stop using plastic to make all the cheap crap that we find in our landfills, the toys that are power-sold to our kids, the whole range of small things at every register. Maybe that's an overstatement, but not by much.

real old furniture was not made with the whole range of off-gasing glues and formaldehyde (sp). They are mostly real wood plank items, not plywood, or more recently chipboard. So using old chairs is not only often cheaper than new, it is doubly eco friendly (2 x eco as it is green in 1st place, and it is a reuse in 2nd place).

look down and find tons of lost items, moola to gold rings. There are people at race tracks that live off wrongly discarded tickets. these people don't do it overtly, but you might see someone flipping a ticket on the ground with a cane.

paul s of CA @ Apr 18, 2009 14:53:35 PM

i wish the world freegan didn't rhyme with vegan

i wish the world freegan didn't rhyme with vegan. there are freegans, there are vegans, there are vegan freegans but not all freegans are vegan (as confirmed by the bacon acquisition mentioned above).

i once met some folks who said they were vegan unless it was freegan and then they would eat whatever they found in dumpsters. so they weren't even vegan or vegetarian if they got it free. when they spent money, they ate vegan but if 20 steaks came out of the dumpster, they ate it.

as long as folks don't connect freegan with vegan, it's all good...

veggiegrrrl of CA @ Apr 18, 2009 13:30:52 PM

supermarket wastefulness

To numerous to list but I get new surprises everyday. Several days ago I found 2 20lb cases of vacuum packed bacon 1 day over use by date. BLT's all summer for me and my friends.

chuck hird of MO @ Mar 13, 2009 02:22:57 AM

Live within YOUR means

If we all just live within our means and be satisfied with what we have, we will have fewer problems. Just saving a dollar a day will give you 365 dollars at the end of the year. I believe in the Jelly jar savings. Drop those coins when you can you will be surprised how much you can save. We recently moved to Raleigh, NC from Chicago IL. Before we moved we counted all the money in the Jelly jars we saved over some years and they amounted to 700.00. This helped with Truck rental and gas on the road. Mindless spending leaves you penniless in the short and long run. Save those pennies!

Nilly of NC @ Mar 04, 2009 11:07:27 AM

smart dumpster diving?

I have friends who go to the most dangerous dumpster, Naked Juice, but they know the day of the week the juice was put in the dumpster. Local weather not above 40 all week? Those items usually have at least a week and they are usually obvious when they are bad. Don't do it if you are faint of stomach but these are young people who live to stick it to the corporations and the man when it comes to the cost of life these days.

aimee of WA @ Feb 08, 2009 16:03:43 PM

Hmmm, college food paid for by taxpayers. Aren't we ALL taxpayers? You can't buy a stick of gum without paying tax om it. My tax dollars go to support state colleges and universities for my and others children. Every time I hand my children a check for tuition, books, supplies, field trips, seminars my income is going to support those same institutions. My daughter graduated from a state university in the Mississippi Delta, you know, poorest state in the union, poorest part of that state. Though she went on a good scholarship, it didn't pay for everything. I worked 16 hour days, often 20 days straight without a day off for three years to pay for everything not covered by the scholarship. She worked 30 hours a week. If she had worked only 20 hrs/week she could have gotten food stamps so we saved the taxpayers some money there. All this so that she could get a good education without borrowing money and could graduate without a student loan to pay off. After supper students were allowed to take food from the cafeteria because it was going to be thrown away anyway. She went dumpster diving on bikes with her friends late at night to pick up whole boxed pizzas, boxes of chicken, dozens of boxed doughnuts, etc that had been thrown out by restaurants and bakeries and would have totally gone to waste. These were then consumed by the students or given to friends and other people in the community they knew were having a hard time. My son attends a state college and works full time. He and his friends dumpster dive behind malls and stores and pick up boxes of pens, pencils, office supplies totally undamaged from office supply stores and gives them away to kids who need them. He found his camera for photography class in a dumpster. Businesses often throw perfectly good items away because the packaging is damaged or a customer didn't the approve the order or some error was made. Often business policies require discarding items instead of donating them. People put perfectly good furniture, etc out for the trash when they could donate it to relief organizations/churches/neighbors who will come pick it up for free. I pick up furniture off the street and in thrift stores and repair, repurpose, refinish it and give it away. Does anyone wonder that banks are failing? The economy is bad and everyone wants the government or someone else to bail them out of their problems. I wonder, are we Americans today willing to do what our parents/grandparents did during the great depression and two world wars. You know, rationing of certain foods/materials, collecting metals, etc, for major recycling, planting "victory" gardens, walking instead of filling up the tanks of our tricked out gas guzzling cars, cooking at home, cutting back the portions, conserve utilities, save to get what you need or want without borrowing money and owing interest. Or will we just yell about our "rights" and demand the government continue to take responsibility for our irresponsibility?

Misty Fied of MS @ Oct 01, 2008 10:08:00 AM

Freegans

To Alan Reed of SC, I'd just like to say that somehow you've missed the whole idea here. We "Freegans" are NOT "against having a good standard of living." There are some of us who are attempting to improve our standard of living by acquiring things (furniture, food, etc.) that we can't afford to purchase. For instance, last Spring when visiting my son & daughter-in-law in a college town, I saw furniture, lamps, small kitchen appliances, clothes, etc. thrown away by students when they were moving out of their dorms or apartments. Sometimes it's very costly for them to move all of their possessions back to mom and dad's across many states. Therefore, they choose to save money by casting out some of their possessions. Many times they simply put the items near the dumpsters to enable recycling. I have become the proud owner of many almost new/hardly used items that as a recipient of Social Security Disability I would not have had the opportunity to purchase at thrift store prices (much less retail).

No one here has said anything about saving "the world by furnishing our homes and eating out of dumpsters". That would be "ridiculous!" Nor has anyone said "it's evil to manufacture and transport anything." To call someone (me) who is simply trying to make the most out of the resources available to me a "freediots" is just plain rude. My circumstances in life are not what I thought they would be at my age, given the fact that I've worked for over 50 of those years. However, health problems prevent me from being an employee anymore, and creative and economical shopping, bartering, swapping, etc. have prevented me from having to choose between the purchase of medication and a healthy diet, and have allowed me to maintain an automobile so I can still be a semi-active participant in my community and church, and enables me to be able to afford the gas to visit my elderly mother, my friends, children and their families.

BTW, I've lived on both sides of this "poor" and "rich" fence. I was born and grew up on the "wrong side of the tracks" in poverty, learning alot of thrifty ways from my parents, who grew up during the depression. During my marriage, I lived in the "upperclass" neighborhood where I continued the coupon clipping, having garage sales and shopping at them, too, and at second-hand stores (now called "thrift shops). This was done so my husband could maintain the facade of "success" demonstrated by only buying brand new cars (NEVER a used car and NEVER even changing the oil himself on any of them) and one of the biggest houses on the block. Having more $$ in the paycheck did not purchase happiness. For him, it sucked him into our society's definition of "success" -- "Whoever dies with the most toys, wins!" -- and has left him a bitter and unfilled man who, even yet, earns well into the 6 figure area each year. Buying into the "Keeping up with the Jones" mentality is what many of us Freegans call "Absurd!"

Kathie of MN @ Oct 01, 2008 00:49:07 AM