Posted on 02/28/2008 5:42:29 AM PST by Clint N. Suhks
On February 27, the Oprah Winfrey show featured a special report by Lisa Ling. In her report Ling took a look at an ever increasing social movement here in the United States. The people in this movement have nicknamed themselves 'freegans'. Their lifestyle is a reaction against consumerism and capitalism in America. Instead of focusing on building up wealth and adding materials to their life, they avoid these possessions. In order to do this, they spend very little money on essential items like food and even less on non essential things. Lisa reports that one of the ways that they do this is by scrounging through other people's garbage to find what they need. I am not a freegan, but this whole lifestyle reminds me of a time when I was a part of a similar society. The group that I was involved with: college students.
I remember it as if it were only a few years ago, which in fact it was. In four years, I slowly built up a gigantic debt and that was without ever having a large credit card bill. At the private school I attended, tuition rose from $9,000 a year for room and board to $13,000 a year. I had monthly bills consisting of car payments, car insurance, and phone bills. These things consumed most of my money. If you couple that with the fact that I could not work all too often, since I was only an average student and needed to spend most of my night studying, then the result was that I was $10,000 in debt by the end of school.
In order to combat this, I stopped spending money. I no longer did or bought anything that cost a double digit sum of money ($10 or more).
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So, who gets the Freegan Vote? Hillary or Barack? Nader, maybe?
>>(My cds were burned).<<
Had money to buy blank CDs but ate old pizza off the floor? Awwww, poor baby.
I lived on Oatmeal for a year of my life. Big freakin’ whoop.
Glad to see that you recovered from the scurvy. LOL
I watched that segment of Oprah. (My sil lives with us and told me I needed to watch the segment, it wasn’t voluntary)
Anyway, those people make money and can afford to buy food and stuff. All the food they found could have been given to a shelter or people who actually need it.
The problem with giving away food is that it’s against the law for restaurants and grocery stores. That’s why the rummage through trash.
I remember the early 80’s and I and the 2nd wife had just gotten a new place to live and work. We had practically no money. Most of the money went into rent and supplies for making the place habitable.
Dinner was often a box of Mac and cheese, the kind from those little boxes. We couldn’t even afford the Kraft version. It was the “Plain Wrap” version from Ralph’s. I think it cost .19 cents a box at the time. When we were flush with extra money, we’d throw in a can of tuna and some frozen peas. That was living.
Actually, a friend and I did dumpster dive a few times. I don’t talk about it.
I guess I should have said that the only thing I bought was oatmeal!
My mom had died and I inherited a house with bills out the wazoo and structural problems that had not been addressed for the 10 years my parents were sick. I earned 15,000 a year and thought I did well. I was also in school while I worked. You do what you have to do. At 25, I didn’t think about what I was doing. I just did it.
Yeah, nothing better than sitting in your car and b!tching on your cell phone about how poor you are. /s/
I bet they still manage to scrape up enough for some weed.
It’s great to be young and too busy to notice how how miserable you’re supposed to be. :)
My niece actually confessed to me that in college she became a dumpster diver.
She’d find all kinds of treasures that other people had cast off—including brand new designer clothes, furniture, etc.
I don’t recall if she’d ever eaten out of a dumpster, but if she did I don’t want to know.
Of course. Obama voter.
>>It’s great to be young and too busy to notice how how miserable you’re supposed to be. :)<<
Amen!
I see articles like this and think, “so?”
When my son was a high school senior, they had to do some type of “real life” program, and when calculating how much money it would take to clothe himself as an adult, he wrote in $25. There were some army recruiters there going over everything with the kids and one of them insinuated that the figure was ridiculous. My son looked back at him the same way and said,”Goodwill.” The recruiter commented that that was a good plan and my son couldn’t get over the fact that the guy hadn’t figured this out on his own! I can see my son living this lifestyle. My younger son, however, is the complete opposite and believes he is being deprived and abused if he doesn’t have the latest in everything.
Ron Paul?
We used to call Freegans “bums.”
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