Frugalism

[Kanastrous]

It’s an unseasonably cold day in Seattle, and Rebecca is standing in her kitchen, preparing for her regular Sunday afternoon outing. As she gathers her backpack and grocery bags, her dog sniffs around excitedly, anticipating the long walk and treats that await.

In the course of their errands, Rebecca and her dog will visit several stores and coffee shops, a bakery and a chocolate factory. But instead of walking in the front door, she plans to head out back and go Dumpster diving.

Rebecca, 51, owns a small duplex and has a job running an art program for a health care organization. She’s also an artist in her own right whose accomplishments include a piece that hangs in the Seattle Art Museum.
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And she gets 99 percent of her food from the Dumpster.

“It’s so easy to eat for free,” she says. “The only things I buy are butter and milk.”

It’s no secret that American culture is a consumer culture. We like big cars, big houses and big bags of things bought at big malls and big-box retailers. On the opposite end of the spectrum are the few people who call themselves anti-consumerists, freegans, frugalists or just plain Dumpster divers. Whatever the moniker, these people delight in drastically reducing their consumer spending, finding life’s essentials at bargain prices or paying nothing at all.

“I like getting stuff free. It’s like a treasure hunt,” says Ran Prieur, 40, who lives in Washington state and whose extremely frugal life includes occasional Dumpster diving. “It’s kind of similar to what you get from gambling.”

It’s hard to say how many people are trying to live this way, but frugal communities say they are seeing more interest. A couple years ago, a group of friends in San Francisco made a compact to try not to buy anything new for a year; now there are “Compactors” all over the world. The Freecycle Network, through which people give away stuff they no longer need rather than trashing it, boasts thousands of participants.

Freegans — whose efforts to live outside the conventional economic system may include hitchhiking, foraging for food and eschewing regular jobs — say there is growing interest in adopting at least parts of their philosophy.

“A lot of people are recognizing that there are a lot of ways that people can provide for their needs,” said Adam Weissman, a spokesman for the main freegan Web site.

Being thrifty

Rebecca, who asked that her real name not be used because she worries she could lose her job if her employer knew about her Dumpster diving, doesn’t need to get food for free.

She says she likes the thrill of the chase, and the surprising bounty of good food she finds. And despite holding a steady job and having grown up in an affluent family, she says she sometimes worries she won’t have enough money. She also likes to “save a little here, save a little there,” so she can afford splurges like a laptop computer and keep funding her art.

For Rebecca, browsing Dumpsters also is a way to protest the country’s rampant consumer culture. She has salvaged furniture, clothes, art supplies and even appliances. Still, even she isn’t totally immune to the culture she avoids — feeling blue recently, she went in for a little retail therapy and bought a new pair of sneakers.

Rebecca grew up in Greenwich, Conn., the daughter of an ad man. As early as high school, she remembers searching through garbage while walking the streets of New York City. Her mother would walk ahead, pretending not to know her. Nobody else bothered her.

“That’s when I really started liking things cheap,” she says.

After high school, Rebecca went to art school, but in 1979, she decided to drop out and head to Seattle. Her artwork includes materials she’s found in the garbage or on the street.

To many first-time Dumpster divers, the most surprising thing is how much good stuff is out there.

Prieur, for example, says his trash bin excursions have netted him smoked salmon, high-end bacon, olive oil, plenty of produce and other goodies. Prieur, who owns a piece of land but has no permanent home, estimates that when he’s staying with his sister in Seattle, he gets 20 to 30 percent of his groceries from garbage bins.

His habit elicits mixed responses. A favorite item at his sister’s house is “Dumpstered” apple pie. But he’ll sometimes invite people over for dinner and get the cautionary response: “Just promise not to put any Dumpster food in it.”

Says Prieur: “There’s a big emotional thing attached to not eating out of the garbage.”

Baby squash, popcorn and granola

When Rebecca reaches the grocery store, she moves with purpose across the parking lot to a fenced-in Dumpster. With practiced nonchalance, she opens the gate and walks in, closing it behind her. On the ground, she immediately finds a bag of baby squashes. They go in the backpack to be steamed up for dinner.

Next, she hikes herself up and peers in the Dumpster itself. Out comes a bag of popcorn, a bag of granola and a package of rice. All are torn, but the contents appear clean.

“Aw darn,” she calls from within. “A box of chocolates — but they’re empty.”

Rebecca passes up pasta and a few other items, explaining that she prefers ready-made food because she doesn’t like to cook.

The granola isn’t her taste, either — she’s a self-described picky eater — but she can give it to her boyfriend.

She also passes up a bag of flavored potato chips, explaining, “I don’t like salt and vinegar.”

Climbing out of the Dumpster, Rebecca opens the gate again and heads out.

In 10 years of serious Dumpster diving, Rebecca says she’s never gotten sick eating food from the trash.

She has only occasionally been hassled by a store manager, but she will usually talk her way out of it by spinning a story that she recently lost her job. People sometimes lecture her, telling her eating out of a Dumpster isn’t good for her. She generally plays along with the spiel, “because most people assume that’s who you are — either homeless or mentally ill,” she says.

‘I hope that Starbucks has some decaf’

As she heads further into Seattle’s University District, Rebecca’s on the lookout for coffee.

“I hope that Starbucks has some decaf because I’m out of decaf,” she says.

But after rifling through several garbage bags, she only comes up with a pile of breakfast sandwiches. She feeds one to her dog.

In her escapades, Rebecca has found CDs, a $100 bill, an answering machine and a five-pound bag of coffee. It often amazes her to come across perfectly good things in the trash, and she will find herself speculating about what personal decision — a fight with a boyfriend, maybe? — would cause someone to throw out something like a CD.

Around the end of the school year, Rebecca will spend more time in the neighborhood near Seattle’s University of Washington to forage for things that people throw out when they move — art supplies, coffee makers, that sort of thing. She also likes to hit the fraternity houses.

“Good God,” she says, “they’ll throw out everything.”

251 million tons of trash

The same could be said for Americans in general. Americans produce about 4.6 pounds of waste per person per day — or nearly a ton a year, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

For many who get their essentials secondhand or for free, one motivation is that they are disgusted by such waste. But their lifestyle is dependent on the consumer culture that they reject.

If Americans didn’t demand pristine produce and bread baked fresh daily, there would be little for Dumpster divers to find. And if we didn’t lust for new couches long before the old springs had gone soft, and new jeans months before their current ones had developed holes, there would be little for thrift store aficionados and garage sale lovers to buy.

Frugalists say they there are plenty of places to find stuff, if you know where to look. They get things on the sidewalk, through Internet posts and at organized giveaway events.

Laura Thompson, 57, does most of her “shopping” in the bathtub, with a stack of catalogs that she never orders from. When she really needs something, she either goes to a thrift store or tries to find it for free. Recently she lamented that she needed a raincoat, and a friend who likes secondhand shopping gave Thompson the one she was wearing.

Thompson is most meticulous about one thing: paper towels. She’s had the same roll of Costco paper towels since March 2006, and she estimates that there’s still about an inch left. If a houseguest asks for a paper towel, they most likely will be turned down.

Thompson only uses paper towels for “icky” jobs, like getting oil off anchovies. She relies on rags and cloth napkins for most other needs. She does have a little bit of a cheat, though: If she goes to a restaurant and is given a stack of paper napkins, she will take those home and use them.

Thompson, who also lives in Seattle, has been trying to conserve paper towels for about 10 years, motivated by a combination of environmental activism and lifelong frugality.

‘Down to the underwear’

Jacqueline Blix and David Heitmiller once held high-powered telecommunications jobs and were self-professed yuppies. Then in the mid-1990s, they read a book called “Your Money or Your Life” and had a revelation: They could just stop working.

Since then, they have lived on investments, occasional sales of Blix’s crafts and, in recent years, Heitmiller’s part-time work as a handyman. They are so enamored of their simple lifestyle that the Seattle couple even wrote their own book about it: “Getting a Life.”

One day in early spring, Blix was dressed in a pink sweater, turquoise turtleneck, khaki pants and knit socks. Everything she was wearing had come from a secondhand shop, “down to the underwear,” she noted — except the socks, which were knit by a friend.

When Heitmiller asked his wife whether everything he was wearing had come from a secondhand shop, too, she looked him over quizzically and said she didn’t know what underwear he was wearing.

Blix and Heitmiller started their post-regular work life living on about $30,000 a year. Lately, their budget has crept up to about $45,000, largely because of rising costs for health insurance and a decision to eat more organic food. They also travel more often to California now to visit their grandchildren.

To maintain their lifestyle in a comfortable three-bedroom, two-bathroom duplex, the two have become avid secondhand shoppers, as well as what Blix calls “curbside shoppers.” That means that they find things, like their coffee table, sitting outside with a “free” sign on it. Other items, including a television and kitchen table, were inherited.

The hardwood floor in their house was salvaged from another house, and Heitmiller bartered his handyman skills in exchange for some leftover carpeting they used elsewhere in the house.
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Blix keeps a list of things that they would like to have, and she says she’s often surprised at how things fall in her lap. Recently they were considering buying some items for their front yard when a friend called with some mulch to give away.

“If you put a need out there in the universe, you’ll be surprised,” she said.

Blix doesn’t think she spends more time shopping than most Americans spend at the mall — the very mention of which makes her physically shudder. The couple goes out for a meal about once a month, and they’ll occasionally visit a coffee shop. Heitmiller has a cell phone for his handyman business; Blix does not want one.

‘A leftover from previous thinking’

Blix, 58, and Heitmiller, 62, say that, in deciding to live simply, they also are forced to talk honestly about money, something many couples don’t do. Still, like any couple, they have the occasional financial disagreement. The difference is that their most memorable disagreement is one that most couples wouldn’t remember at all.

What happened is this: Blix took a Costco gift card she’d received and bought a new set of flatware, to replace the set Heitmiller had had since his first marriage in 1968, without so much as a word of discussion beforehand. To Heitmiller, it was an “oddity” that she would buy something new to replace something that worked just fine. To Blix, it was her money and she wanted new flatware.

On the rare occasions Blix has spent money like that, she calls it “a leftover from previous thinking,” when she was more beholden to money.

The idea of not working sounds great to a lot of people, but there are downsides. Health care costs have risen substantially, and without an employer the couple is left to foot the bill themselves until Medicare kicks in. They have a high-deductible policy that doesn’t cover prescription medication.

Over the years, the couple also has noticed that they have grown away from many of their old friends, although now they have a new group of friends who think more like them, including those active in what is called the Voluntary Simplicity movement.

Blix says another problem she has is “time management,” meaning what to do with all the time she has because she doesn’t work. “You really are faced with, ‘What am I going to do with my life?’ ” she says. “It’s something that I definitely work on.”

Three Dumpsters of bread

It’s looking more and more like rain as Rebecca walks along the water and through a park, pausing briefly to admire the view of Seattle’s downtown. The aroma of rosemary and yeast fills the air. She is nearing one of Seattle’s favorite artisan bakeries.

Behind the bakery sit three tan Dumpsters, each filled with nothing but bread — every type you can think of, bagged and looking as mouth-watering as they do on the shelves at Whole Foods. It doesn’t even smell bad here — the store’s other Dumpsters, containing actual trash, are around the front of the store.

Rebecca pulls out a loaf of ciabatta for herself, and then roots around for a whole-grain loaf for her boyfriend of 18 years. He’s not much of a Dumpster diver himself, but he will eat some things she finds.

A white hatchback pulls up and three young guys get out and head for the Dumpsters. Methodically, they begin gathering bread for themselves and their friends. They pause, arms and mouths full of bread, to discuss the merits of ciabatta vs. olive bread. No one comes out of the bakery to bother them.

Next, Rebecca heads toward an outpost of the local food co-op. Behind the shiny new building are two large Dumpsters, and next to those someone has set aside produce boxes. Rebecca says the good fresh fruits and vegetables are usually in there, but today they are empty. No matter; hiking herself up on the large Dumpster, she finds the mother lode — a breakfast burrito, samosas, pulled pork sandwiches and vegetarian burgers, all individually wrapped in tinfoil and some still warm. They aren’t set to expire until the next day.

“This is a nice catch today,” she says.

It’s raining as she begins the long uphill trek back to her house, her backpack filled with enough food to last a couple of days, until her next trip through the city’s Dumpsters.

“I’m a working girl,” she says. “I have a job. I own my own house. And I Dumpster dive. So there you go.”

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24879628/

[Uraniun235]

Blix doesn’t think she spends more time shopping than most Americans spend at the mall — the very mention of which makes her physically shudder.

What is the average for that? I find myself at the mall maybe once a year. But I know I'm not 'average'.

Also the part about "fresh bread daily" struck me. My mother and I typically buy several loaves at a time off the shelf, and stick them in the freezer until we need them.

[Broomstick]

During my first trip through the Poverty Tunnel I confess to dumpster diving for furniture and clothes (lived near someone who, every three months without fail, would throw out her ENTIRE wardrobe and buy new!). Didn't do that for food, though. Back then, in Chicago (and that was over 20 years ago) lots of people dumpster dived, and sometimes heated arguments would break out over particularly choice finds.

Currently, I'm shopping at second hand stores and growing some of my own food (just had the first turnips from the garden tonight...mmmmm). I won't dumpster dive for food, sorry, can't stomach that, but for anything that can be cleaned....yeah, I not only would consider it, I have done it. But for me, it's a strategy for surviving poverty more than a "lifestyle choice".

[Eulogy]

If you don't want something, then sell it, give it away, or make something else out of it. For fuck's sake, I'd feel bad dropping a few fries on the sidewalk - this is horrifying but not surprising.

[The Spartan]

I did it a couple times in college at the bookstore. I never got anything that was useful in a class but I did manage to snag a nice book on statistics with the study guide.

[PainRack]

hmmm........ I really can't imagine eating garbage food, although I had salvaged newspapers and magazines from stuff other people threw out. Ditto for cans when they threw it next to the recycling bin nearby and pens.

[Darth Wong]

It sometimes bothers me when I think about how much food we've ground up and flushed down the drain through my kitchen garbage disposal unit. But we only do that when the food has gone bad or is going bad. I can't see why anyone would want it unless he has six legs.

[LapsedPacifist]

I've met a couple of people who dumpster dive as a lifestyle choice. Whether or not they're doing it as a quirky hipster thing, a philosophical decision, or honestly out of economy I haven't decided.

LP

[Broomstick]

I think it's partly my prior brush with poverty, but I tend to be very careful about not wasting food. Stuff that has gone bad will, of course, be tossed, but otherwise there's this thing called "leftovers". In fact, since the advent of the microwave oven (yes, boys and girls, I remember life before microwaves were common household appliances) has made reheating things ridiculously easy I simply leave leftovers in the fridge and my Other Half consumes them in the middle of the night or when he needs a daytime snack. Food almost never goes to waste around here.

Now that I'm composting for the garden there's even less waste in our garbage, as trimmings and peels and bruised parts all go into the compost heap out back.

Wish we had cost-effective recycling for cans, but we don't have any sort of curbside pickup for that in my neighborhood and the cost of driving a load of them to the recycling center is more than we'd get for the metal. Of course, the homeless and desperate DO pick through dumpsters looking for cans, and more power to them.

[Alferd Packer]

It sometimes bothers me when I think about how much food we've ground up and flushed down the drain through my kitchen garbage disposal unit. But we only do that when the food has gone bad or is going bad. I can't see why anyone would want it unless he has six legs.

You could always set up composting. That'd take care of any plant matter that you'd otherwise throw out, and properly done, you can get a batch of compost in around three weeks. Of course, that assumes that actually have a use for compost, like a garden or somesuch.

[Shroom Man 777]

Do not get me started on this.

While doing duty in the hostipal for nurse school, I had to work in the hospital kitchen as well - working with the food servers (the dudes who push the trays and serve the food door-to-door) and with the cooks. Basically they're all the same dudes.

Anyway, after we delivered the food, an hour later we'd come back for the trays. A LOT of them were untouched because people think hospital food sucks.

Anyway, there still hermetically wrapped in their cellophane coverings were watermelons.

Protocol dick-tates that we end up DUMPING all of these foods, the half-eaten ones, the left-over foods, AND the untouched and still sealed watermelons and soups and meats and beefs into the garbage.

Goddamn! I swear, I did take a couple of bites from those untouched and thus far sealed watermelons. Cause it was such a fucking waste.

[Alferd Packer]

I think it's partly my prior brush with poverty, but I tend to be very careful about not wasting food. Stuff that has gone bad will, of course, be tossed, but otherwise there's this thing called "leftovers". In fact, since the advent of the microwave oven (yes, boys and girls, I remember life before microwaves were common household appliances) has made reheating things ridiculously easy I simply leave leftovers in the fridge and my Other Half consumes them in the middle of the night or when he needs a daytime snack. Food almost never goes to waste around here.

In a similar vein, my wife and I purchased a chest freezer for the basement. Now, we can make huge meals from more economical bulk purchases of food, and freeze individual portions in the chest freezer for months. This way, we're not forced to eat the same thing for a week straight, lest a good portion of it go bad.

[Maxentius]

Food is the one thing I won't screw around with; no dumpster diving for me. I've gotten food poisoning three times (once from Windows On The World, about a year before 9/11, oddly enough), and that's twice too many for my tastes. If I'm ingesting something, I want it to be as perfectly prepared as possible, and I'm just too picky about that to be able to retrieve my food from a dumpster.

Other stuff, on the other hand, I've got no real scruples with, though if it was clothes or furniture I'd probably end up giving them one of the most ardent washing and cleaning processes known to man. Plus, I live in New York City, where it's a bit harder to dumpster dive, simply because a lot of businesses have their dumpsters located inside the building, and have it removed by a disposal service.

[Broomstick]

You could always set up composting. That'd take care of any plant matter that you'd otherwise throw out, and properly done, you can get a batch of compost in around three weeks. Of course, that assumes that actually have a use for compost, like a garden or somesuch.

If you have a lawn you have a use for compost. Of course, you'll need to purchase some sort of spreader-device (even if it's just a rake you assign to teenagers needing to work off energy and sugar-laden soft drinks).

[Broomstick]

Anyway, after we delivered the food, an hour later we'd come back for the trays. A LOT of them were untouched because people think hospital food sucks.

Speaking as someone who spent time in a hospital for a gastrointestinal illness, sometimes patients don't eat simply because they're sick. The would offer me more food than they expected me to eat, hoping to stimulate my appetite or something. It wasn't that the food sucked (it actually didn't) or that I wasn't hungry, it's just they my body couldn't handle much more than a tiny amount.

But yeah, I hated seeing the part I couldn't eat go to waste. But a hospital is different than what I do on a daily basis.

I know in the Chicago area one of the food banks managed to purchase a refrigerated truck, allowing them to pick up and transport perishables and they got permission to do this with catering leftovers under certain conditions. I'm wondering if it would be feasible to do this with the sealed hospital leftovers? Just a thought.

[Spin Echo]

I was at a T station once around time the various vendor shops close up. The Au bon Pain and Dunkin' Donuts employees were tossing out trash cans full of bread, pastries, muffins. That pissed me off considering how many homeless people there are in Boston. You think they could at least give the day olds to a homeless shelter or soup kitchen instead of tossing them every night.

[Darth Wong]

I was at a T station once around time the various vendor shops close up. The Au bon Pain and Dunkin' Donuts employees were tossing out trash cans full of bread, pastries, muffins. That pissed me off considering how many homeless people there are in Boston. You think they could at least give the day olds to a homeless shelter or soup kitchen instead of tossing them every night.

They have to look out for their potential liability. If somebody eats old food donated by a business and gets sick, you can bet your ass he'll try to sue them.

[Spin Echo]

They have to look out for their potential liability. If somebody eats old food donated by a business and gets sick, you can bet your ass he'll try to sue them.

Yeah, that's what I had figured. It's just such a waste considering all the hungry people in the city and the fact the food is not really old, it's simply not fresh baked.

[Broomstick]

As I said, in Chicago an organization got its act together sufficiently as to make business donations of that sort convenient - not to mention is saves said businesses the cost of having the trash hauled away, there's less to attract rodents, etc. - a win-win all around. It sound like Boston needs someone to organize something like that.

The organization is The Greater Chicago Food Depository.

[Eulogy]

I don't blame you. Shroom. Imagine, a cow being raised on a pasture, eating and shitting for years, brought to a slaughterhouse, butchered, packaged, sent to market, unwrapped, cooked, and delivered.

Only to be thrown out and left to rot in a landfill.

All that energy, resources, time, and money utterly wasted by tossing out good food.

I know that food that has spoiled need to be disposed of, true, but still.

[Oni Koneko Damien]

I've gotten no small number of useful things from dumpster diving, including most of my furniture, a useful art cabinet, and a nice number of containers.

Food... I only take if it's in unbroken packaging, has a visible expiration date, and doesn't need to be refrigerated. Either that, or if I actually see someone in the act of throwing away something they just got, usually because it was dropped on the ground all of once. It's amazing the things people throw away.

[Broomstick]

I don't blame you. Shroom. Imagine, a cow being raised on a pasture, eating and shitting for years, brought to a slaughterhouse, butchered, packaged, sent to market, unwrapped, cooked, and delivered.

Only to be thrown out and left to rot in a landfill.

All that energy, resources, time, and money utterly wasted by tossing out good food.

Actually, I don't think the average beef steer is kept alive longer than about 18 months.

Nonetheless, a waste.

[Ziggy Stardust]

I used to live in Rhode Island, not far from Brown University. At the end of the year, right after the seniors graduate and all the undergrads leave for the summer, I go dumpster diving around there. It absolutely sickens me some of the stuff that is thrown out. I've found fully functioning iPods and laptops, perfectly good pairs of sneakers, plenty of clothing in good condition, etc. Hell, once I even found an intact bong with twenty bucks inside of it.

[Ziggy Stardust]

Ghetto Edit: Dammit, I accidentally hit Submit instead of Preview.

I was going to add that the US in general is very wasteful, especially in terms of food. Hell, the law does not always make it easy. Ever heard of the organization Food Not Bombs? It's an organization that food that would otherwise be thrown out and serves (usually vegetarian or vegan) meals to homeless people and whatnot. In Boston and Florida, members were arrested for doing this, in Pennsylvania the organization was forcibly disbanded, and in Texas it was put on the FBI's "Terrorist Watch" list.

(Note: I am not saying there is a government conspiracy or anything, or an attempt by the government to shut down this type of operation intentionally. All of the above examples were for other reasons, involving obscure city ordinances and licensing permits and the like. I merely stated them to provide an example of how it is not always possible to be as charitable as you might like.)

[Eulogy]

I used to live in Rhode Island, not far from Brown University. At the end of the year, right after the seniors graduate and all the undergrads leave for the summer, I go dumpster diving around there. It absolutely sickens me some of the stuff that is thrown out. I've found fully functioning iPods and laptops, perfectly good pairs of sneakers, plenty of clothing in good condition, etc. Hell, once I even found an intact bong with twenty bucks inside of it.

At least the bong is understandable. Still stupid, but understandable.

It's unfortunate, however, that the universities and colleges - touted as places of higher learning - house such horrendously, moronically wasteful students. Those guys are our future?

I was going to add that the US in general is very wasteful, especially in terms of food. Hell, the law does not always make it easy. Ever heard of the organization Food Not Bombs? It's an organization that food that would otherwise be thrown out and serves (usually vegetarian or vegan) meals to homeless people and whatnot. In Boston and Florida, members were arrested for doing this, in Pennsylvania the organization was forcibly disbanded, and in Texas it was put on the FBI's "Terrorist Watch" list.

To Joe Public, it'll sure sound like a conspiracy. Kudos to FNB for taking the initative and simentaneously reduce waste and feed the poor.