Dine-In Challenge, An Update

by Katy on February 23, 2010 · 18 comments

Today is day two of the Dine-In Week Challenge, and already it’s affecting me.

Yesterday I worked, which made things pretty easy. I get a half-hour lunch break, and although other nurses do it, I don’t like to use up a huge chunk of my too short break grabbing food from the cafeteria. I bring simple food from home which always feels right, as a big lunch weighs me down and makes me feel sluggish for the rest of my shift.

Both my husband and I were kind of dragging come dinner time, so I asked him to repeat a meal he’d made just the night before. It was some sort of spicy chicken dish mixed with whole wheat spaghetti noodles that had been a huge hit with the four of us. (There had even been conflict about who would get the leftovers in their school lunch the next day!) When I asked him if we still had the ingredients on hand for a repeat performance, my husband laughed and replied that we always have the ingredients!

We later walked over to the Fred Meyer grocery store, as the unusual sunny weather was just too good to pass up, plus we needed to pick up lettuce for a salad. Whole roaster chickens were on sale for 69¢ a pound, so I bought one for tonight. I don’t often buy whole chickens as I have a nasty habit of meaning to make soup with the leftovers and then not getting around to it. (A large component of decreasing my food waste has been to recognize what foods I’m wasting, and then making changes based on that self-awareness.)

So tonight’s dinner will be roasted chicken with new potatoes. (Someone left the potatoes at one of my mother’s guest cottages, and I am the primo #1 gleaner of these rentals.)

Here’s how the Dine-In-Challenge has affected me so far. My husband and I went for a longish walk this morning, and passed a really nice coffee shop along the way. Normally I would have suggested that we go in for a treat, but today we just kept walking. Saved me both money and the empty calories I would have consumed.

Are you participating in the Dine-In Week Challenge, and if so, what’s for dinner tonight? Please share your yummy thoughts in the comments section below.

Katy Wolk-Stanley

“Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without.”

P.S. Interesting in learning more about food waste? Make sure to take a look through Jonathan Bloom’s terrific wastedfood.com blog!

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Dine-In Week Challenge

by Katy on February 21, 2010 · 30 comments

Natalie McNeal, who blogs over at The Frugalista has put together a Dine-In Week challenge which runs from February 22-26th. This is a great idea, as restaurant meals not only drain your wallet, but have that evil tendency to expand the ol’ waistline.

For many of us, going five weekdays without eating out is not that difficult of a challenge, but McNeal is fabulous singleton; plus this week includes her birthday. She’ll be posting her meals, plus a tally of how much money she’s saving.

I would like to extend this challenge to the Non-Consumer Advocate community. This means no restaurant meals, no take-out and no fancy work lunches.

This is an opportunity to dust off your stove and plan some nice meals with friends and family. I have a tendency to prepare some pretty simple meals that often lack that wow factor, so I think I’ll plan a few fancier meals than normal. (Keep in mind that fancy does not necessarily mean expensive.)

Are you in? Would you like to take this week as an opportunity to polish up those home cooking skills? Please add your name in the comments section below to join the Dine-In Week challenge.

Katy Wolk-Stanley

“Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without.”

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When is it Worth it to Stock Up?

by Katy on February 20, 2010 · 28 comments

One of the basic tenets of frugality is to stock up on needed items when they’re on sale/cheap and then shop from your stash, instead of needing to run out to pay full price.

But this is not always practical or advisable. If your money is being spent stocking up on household supplies, then it’s not available for immediate needs such as paying bills, backup emergency funds or charitable giving. Plus, it takes up a lot of space to store all this stuff.

I am not someone who keeps a huge stash of sale items filling up my pantry. A) I have no pantry, and B) that’s just not my personality. But there are ways that I do stock up.

Items that I stock up on are those that have a long shelf life and are at a rock bottom price. Examples would be 2-pound blocks of Tillamook cheese for $3.99 or $1 jars of jam. Essentially though, it needs to be a loss leader or close to it for me to bother with buying much extras. I will not buy something just because it’s cheap or free. It has to be something I would normally buy. So no weird products, and minimal packaged food. Even if I have a coupon.

One method to efficiently stock up on groceries that I don’t take advantage of is to use a freezer. Yes, I have my above-the fridge freezer, but there’s only so much food that can fit in there. I try to simply not use it as frozen food storage, and it’s usually filled with extra loaves of bread, individually frozen chicken breasts and bits of this and that.

Another time that I stock up on food or household goods, is when the item is bought in a speciality store that I only visit infrequently. This can be the rice wine vinegar from the Asian market, or the three-packs of soap that I buy at the Dollar Tree store. Buying these items away from the traditional grocery store saves me a lot of money, so it’s worth it to stock up. Plus, it’s a pain in the tuchus to run out of these items, so I like knowing that I’m set for awhile.

Are you the type of shopper that keeps a deep stash of pantry staples, or do you buy food and other household items as you run out? Please share your thoughts in the comments section below.

Katy Wolk-Stanley

“Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without.”

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Frugality in Photos — Clothesline Magic and The Art of Haggling

by Katy on February 20, 2010 · 8 comments

The Beauty of Line Dried Clothing

Portland, Oregon has been enjoying a bizarrely sunny and warm week, which has startled us Oregonians who are not used to that big bright round thing in the sky. We’ve shed our rain gear and looked for any and all opportunities to enjoy a little outdoor activity. For others, this may mean long bike rides and hiking, for me it means the luxury of line drying my laundry in the bright and sun drenched outdoors.

Ahh . . . .

Although we also air dry our laundry indoors, a load can take up to three days to completely dry, and we simply do not have a large enough wardrobe or backup linens to wait that long. But this unseasonably warm weather has brought back the deliciousness of air dried towels and jeans.

I was hanging a load of laundry on the line this morning, when I noticed a science lesson in the making as the evaporation of water molecules steamed from the blue jeans so neatly clipped on the clothesline. Like a 1970’s Blue Oyster Cult rock concert, I was entranced; and I stood there watching the mystical swirling water molecules wafting up to the sky.

A reminder than when I throw a load of laundry into the electric dryer, I’m paying for evaporation.

I ♥ my clothesline.

The Art of Haggling

My household finally worked its way through a full ream of paper, which is high drama to my sons, as they will often draw for hours.

So my younger son and I walked over to the Fred Meyer grocery store which boasts a few aisles of office supplies. Oddly, someone had opened up every package of paper, and had even torn the thick paper covering from both the reams of recycled paper that I had wanted to buy.

I picked up the package that was least ripped and brought it to the register. I politely pointed out that this item was damaged, but that I still wanted to buy it. The clerk offered 10% off, but I asked if it were possible to get more of a discount. He then called over a supervisor who asked me what I thought would be fair. I suggested a 25% discount, which she happily agreed to. I payed $4.50, which was $1.50 off the $6.00 asking price. The entire transaction took maybe, two minutes, which would equal $45 per hour. ($1.50 for two minutes work, times 30.)

Tax free earnings baby, tax free!

Who says the art of haggling is dead?

Katy Wolk-Stanley

“Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without.”

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3 Ways to Prepare for Christmas (Yup! Christmas!) — A Guest Post From The Frugal Girl

by Katy on February 18, 2010 · 2 comments

The following is a guest post from Kristen, who blogs over at The Frugal Girl. Kristen describes herself as “a 31 year old mom of four, and wife of one. I’m a homeschooler, part-time piano teacher, part-time piano player, dabbler in photography, and baking nut, among other things.”

This post inspired me to pick up a small birthday present at Goodwill today for my son who is turning 12 in May.

Enjoy!

Katy Wolk-Stanley

“Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without.”

I know…doesn’t it seem like Christmas just passed?  You probably can hardly stand to think about lights and trees and ornaments and gifts anymore, let alone consider Christmas 2010 and all its trappings.

But, if you are one of the many people who received a depressing pile of post-Christmas bills in the mail during these past 6 weeks, I’d love to encourage you to think about next Christmas, and perhaps consider doing a couple of things starting now.  (Mmmhhmmm. In February!)

1 Start Saving

My husband and I start saving for Christmas in January, and we continue that all throughout the year.  We don’t go crazy at Christmas, so we don’t have to save a LOT each month.  We just have $40 automatically sent to our ING Christmas Savings account every month, and by the end of the year, we have a nice little pile of money saved for gifts.

For many years, we didn’t operate this way, and I can tell you that the saving-ahead-of-time route is SO much less stressful…I really can’t recommend it enough!  Even if you can only save $5 a week, that’s better than nothing.

ING* is a perfect place to stash your Christmas savings because the money is not readily available for withdrawal.  To take it out, you have to request a transfer to your regular checking account, and that takes several days. This makes it much less tempting to pull the money out for something frivolous.

2. Keep Your Eyes Open For Gifts

The thing about looking for bargains at thrift stores or regular stores is that it’s sort of difficult to predict when they’ll be available (especially at thrift stores!).  So, if you wait until December 15th, 2010 to start shopping, odds are good that you’ll have difficulty finding what you want, or you’ll have to pay more than you’d prefer to pay.

Obviously it’s not always good to buy things way ahead of time, but by the same token, it does work out well sometimes.  For instance, I know that Sonia is going to enjoy receiving bath products at Christmas time, so I’m already keeping a eye out to see if I can find some at Goodwill, and I’ll do that all year long.  As another example, I know we’re going to let Lisey get her ears pierced this year, so I bought some fun Christmas earrings for her on clearance in January.

The little silver picture frame above is one that I found at Goodwill for my sister-in-law, who collects old silver frames.  By taking a quick look through the frames each week at Goodwill, I’ve been able to find 5 different silver frames for her collection, and though these cost far less than new frames at the store, she much prefers to receive the older variety.

3. Think About What You Could Make For Christmas


If you want to learn how to make candy so that you can give it for gifts at Christmas, start practicing now so that you have a good recipe and a good skill set by December.  The same goes if you want to learn how to make bread, jelly, scrapbooks (I really am going to post my scrapping tips soon!  I have some post drafts going.), knit hats, or who knows what else.  If you start learning a skill now, your gifts will be that much better in December.

Another advantage to thinking ahead about making things for Christmas is that you can start ahead of time.  This is especially handy if you are making time-consuming gifts, non-perishable gifts like knit items or scrapbooks.  As a for instance, I got the idea to make the leather album for my sister back in May, and I added a few pages to the album every time I did a photo shoot of my nephew.  This was much less stressful than starting the album for my husband’s grandma 4 days before Christmas.  <cough that was stupid cough>

If you’re at a loss when it comes to homemade gift ideas, you might find the suggestions in my post on homemade Christmas gifts to be helpful.

_______________________________________

So, that’s how I prepare ahead of time. But if you’ve got a good planning-ahead idea for Christmas that’s different than mine, do share with us in the comments. You might inspire me!

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When it’s Okay to Not Own the Very Best

by Katy on February 17, 2010 · 45 comments

Part of how I feel good about following The Compact and that by only buying used, I’m able to choose much higher quality items than I would be able to otherwise afford.

My family’s Goodwill clothes are Nordstrom instead of Target, and the boys wear Vans brand sneakers instead of Payless Shoe Source. This may sound elitist, but the higher price usually translates to higher quality, which means that our stuff lasts longer.

But what about when it is okay to settle for less than the very best?

I have a friend who feels that it’s very important to buy the very best for her family. Her tricycles are Kettler, her vacuum cleaner is Dyson and her son’s clothes are Hanna Andersson. She would sooner shave her head than load up a cart at Goodwill.

My instinct is always to strive for the higher quality item, but I’m also aware that a lesser quality item will often do the trick. An example of this is my washing machine, which I bought for $45 from Craigslist around ten years ago. In my dream world, I own a high efficiency front loading washer in metallic apple green with hot rod-style flames that lick up the sides. In reality, my washing machine has been a boxy white number, which was most likely manufactured in the mid-1970’s. (The faux-computer-style lettering is clue #1.)

But this make it do washing machine is completely functional, even though I’m fully aware that it uses more water than a high efficiency model would. Unfortunately, the closest approximation of my dream model is currently on sale for $1222.49. (I do have a recent model clothes dryer though, as current ones are far more energy efficient.)

My mother owns three guest cottages, which translates into a lot of sheets and towels to wash, and her washing machine was simply not heavy duty enough to keep up with her needs. So she went to the appliance store and bought a high efficiency metallic red set and offered up her old machine to me. Hmm . . . it wasn’t my dream machine, but it was certainly newer than my Carter administration era washer.

So out went the old-old machine and in came the new-old machine.

The new machine is great! It may be twenty years old, but it spins the loads much drier than my old one which means less time to dry in the dryer or on the line. (An important factor in our damp climate.)

Maybe someday I’ll own the washing machine of my dreams, but until then I’m completely content to wash my family’s clothes in a perfectly functional white box of a washer.

I don’t have to own the very best.

Are you are able to be satisfied with less than the very best, or do you strive for the best-of-the-best? Please share your thoughts in the comments section below.

Katy Wolk-Stanley

“Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without.”

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“How I Live Cheaply” Comments and a Book Winner!

by Katy on February 16, 2010 · 1 comment

Thank you to everyone who commented on Lauren Weber’s In Freeganism I Trust guest post. As always, your input was beyond what I could have hoped for. Unfortunately, I could only (randomly) pick one reader to win a copy of In Cheap We Trust: The Story of a Misunderstood American Virtue.

Congratulations to Elizabeth B. whose comment was randomly chosen as the winner of Weber’s book. Here is her comment:

I try to buy used as much as humanly possible. Aside from socks (which to me are investment pieces because I wear them until they just won’t stay up any more) and underwear (which I buy at Macy’s with coupons), I haven’t bought a new piece of clothing for myself in a long time. A lot of my housewares purchases are from Goodwill, too. Books are definitely a guilty pleasure, although I try to use the library as much as I can. Don’t get me started on craft supplies; although I try to get a lot of them from the East Bay Depot for Creative Reuse, Joann and Beverly’s are my Waterloo.

Here are just a few of the incredible reader comments:

From Kim Caron-Lohman:

1. Stopped buying new books and started using the library! I used to buy all new books from Amazon. Now I use Amazon to search for books and then head on over to the online library catalogue to order for free. Wow, how cool is that? Sorry Amazon!!!

2. Moved in with relatives to weather the current economic crisis. We’re living in an area with almost 20% unemployment and my husband is currently unemployed. We’re able to share utilities and some food and it’s working out great!

3. I started cooking all our meals from scratch and being super careful to buy only what we can use before it goes bad. We buy only what’s on a really good sale and plan our meals around those sale items.

4. We stopped paying for services, and now do everything we can ourselves. My son fixes our truck for us, I cut my husband’s hair for him, etc.

5. We’ve become minimalist and have sold many things we didn’t need on Amazon, Ebay and Craig’s List.

6. Started shopping at thrift stores and garage sales and only buy what is absolutely necessary.

7. I’m learning to Use It Up, Wear It Out, Make Do or Do Without!!!

Like I said, I’m a newbie! Very glad to have found your site – it’s a great resource!

From Jennifer H:

I know this has been mentioned, but I find the biggest way to live cheaply is to eat at home.

My husband cooks most of our dinners and has made some wonderful dishes including Greek moussaka and green curry using whitefish. We very rarely have a meal where meat has the starring role. Most of the time we do have meat, but it’s in a combination dish with lots of veggies or rice or legumes or all three! There are many weeks that between the two of us, we consume only 1-2 lbs of meat during the seven days.

We always pack our lunches. As a Christmas gift, I bought my husband a food slicer. He loves to cook up hams and turkey breasts and slice them up for lunches. It’s so much cheaper than any lunch meat you can buy in the store. I tend to eat meatless lunches, but love the fresh ground peanut butter from our local store. I also tend to bake a lot of cookies and other treats for the lunches, so that we don’t have to rely on store-bought snacks.

Both of us love to preserve food. We take full advantage of our neighbor’s apple tree by making lots of apple sauce for the winter. (They encourage us to strip the tree. They don’t use the apples and just end up having to clean them up). This past fall we made our own spaghetti sauce, salsa, stewed tomatoes and chili base from tomato “seconds” that were being sold at the local farmer’s market. It’s so satisfying to see the rows of glass jars filled with goodies in your kitchen cabinets. We also make our own jam and tend to freeze in bulk anything that we can buy in season for later use.

We tend to save going out for special occasions. Most of the time what we can make right at home tastes so much better anyways!

From Amy H:

The most recent thing that I’m proud of for “living cheaply” was taking our 9- or 10-year-old blender to a local small appliance repair shop. It had started making horrible grinding noises and didn’t blend. The shop owner took it apart, determined it needed a new clutch, put a new one in and now it works great! It cost us only $35 for the part and labor. Since this was commercial-grade blender, it would have been many times that to replace it. I’m mostly so happy about this b/c my husband is not yet anywhere like the cheapskate/frugal person I grew up as, and in earlier days he would have just thrown out the blender and bought a new one. So this is huge progress! :)

I also rent textbooks for my grad school classes; compost; don’t use A/C or heat (our apt. has radiators); unplug appliances; walk everywhere (or take MUNI); don’t get haircuts very often and never color my hair; stopped buying music and listen to pandora.com instead; get books from the library. Where we could be more frugal — moving to a smaller apt. in a different part of town. Haven’t managed to bring ourselves to make that decision yet, so we’re trying to appreciate our space and our neighborhood as the wonderful things that they are every day.

From Michele H:

Here’s what I do to live frugally:
–If I am going to buy something new (including groceries and services), I try to combine a sale and a coupon to get the best price.
–I try to let my toddler have real (and cheap or free) experiences like splashing in puddles instead of buying him more toys. I also potty-trained my son earlier than is average nowadays, in part to decrease the laundry load (we used cloth diapers) and diapering expenses.
–I read online reviews for products, but then try to buy them used–or at least at the best price. If you decide you are going to buy something online, at least look for a Facebook fan page first: they often have coupon codes.
–I use the library and inter-library loan instead of buying books (for both myself and my son).
–We use cloth napkins and real plates and cups all the time.
–My husband and I plan ahead for major purchases and keep an emergency fund for home repairs, etc., so as not to charge anything we can’t pay for at the end of the month.

From A. Marie:

I’m joining the conversation a bit late, and most of the specific suggestions I would have offered have already been put forth by other folks, so what I’m submitting is a matter of attitude adjustment I first learned 35 years ago. I was attending an Orthodox Jewish wedding (as a Gentile friend of the bride) and happened to overhear a conversation between the mothers of the bride and the groom. Groom’s mom kept kosher and other religious practices more strictly than Bride’s mom, and evidently there had been a mildly heated debate about this. (Bride’s family and I came from a part of the country where there wasn’t a lot of external support for keeping strict kosher.) I strolled up just in time to hear Bride’s mom say, “Well, we all keep kosher just as much as we can do. I do it as much as I can, and you do it as much as you can.” I’ve always thought this was a very sane and balanced approach to many things. In the context of thrift, we all do as much as we can–and while we should always be trying to do more, we shouldn’t beat up on ourselves because we’re not doing as much as we think other people are doing, either. I think Amy Dacyczyn made a similar point in one of her books.

I especially love this last comment, as we all practice frugality in a different manner, yet we’re all doing our best.

Thanks again to everyone who took the time to share your personal stories of cheapness. And a big deserved shout out to Lauren Weber and the fine folks over at Little, Brown and Company.

Katy Wolk-Stanley

“Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without.”


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What Are You Doing to Live Cheaply?

by Katy on February 15, 2010 · 3 comments

The Non-Consumer Advocate is currently running a giveaway for a copy of Lauren Weber’s fabulous In Cheap We Trust: The Story of a Misunderstood American Virtue. To enter, readers have been commenting about what they do to live cheaply, and these comments have been informative, inspired and downright incredible. I normally wait to publish comments after the giveaways end, but a few of the comments were just too good to wait!

Click HERE to enter your comment on what you’re doing to live cheaply. Giveaway contest ends Wednesday, February 16th at midnight, Pacific time zone. U.S. residents only.

From Bellen:

I have a degree in Home Economics from the 60’s – during Pres. Johnson’s War on Poverty – and was taught how to get 5 cents from every penny. So – I buy used clothes, except underwear, and those only on sale. We buy what husband calls ‘used’ meat and bread – priced to sell, usually 30-50% off, because they are at the sell by date. We shop yard sales, thrift stores, and pick from the garbage if possible – stores in our area use closed & locked dumpsters but sometimes we luck out. We cook from scratch and only eat out if someone’s treating or we have a gift card – maybe 6 times a year.

I sew, repair and repurpose anything made of material – an odd kitchen curtain became an apron, a sweatshirt with frayed cuffs became a vest.
My husband can fix almost anything mechanical. We garden in containers, have a rain barrel made from a free 55 gal container, drip irrigation made from free 5 gal buckets and some tubing, have some raised beds made from odd sized not needed hurricane shutters. We buy trees, fruit bearing citrus, from the clearance racks at Lowe’s or Home Depot because their return policy works for clearance items also. Our veggies are grown from seed, heirloom when possible, and we are saving seed also.

We rarely buy books and only if they are non-fiction – we use the library constantly, we read the newspapers on line, surf the web for garden sites, frugal sites, and even prepper sites altho not the ones emphasizing guns.

We take advantage of as many free entertainment opportunities as possible including musical acts at a local mall, the beach, local parks, state parks and museums on free admission days.

Our grocery shopping is based on the BOGO deals weekly, store brands and really good sales but ONLY on the items we would normally buy. I follow a rather strict menu that reduces our intake of meat/fish/fowl and increases the veggies and complex carbs. We grind our own WW flour, bake our own bread, rolls, muffins, and have even made our own pasta.

We recently bought a bank owned house needing only a stove and refrig for 1/3 of the purchase price 3 years ago. It has increased in value by $35,000 over what we paid just 9 months ago. We bought our refrig & stove from someone who was losing their home, unfortunate but a fact of life.

Because we are frugal we are able to live quite well on our SS and not touch our other retirement accounts.

From Elizabeth Kountouris:

I too, would love to win this book. Listed below are the things I do in my everyday life to live cheaply, more sustainably and more in harmony with the earth.
1. I live a 15 minute walk away from work, so I gave up my car.
2. I live in a co op where all of us work together and have wonderful apartments. This way we take up less space but have control over our environment.
3. I and other co opers compost our kitchen scraps so that we can use the resulting fertilizer on our grounds.
4. I cook 90% of my food from scratch. I don’t grind my own flour but have considered it.
5. I have a community garden plot and grow many of my own organic veggies, and buy others at our city farmer’s market to support our local growers.
6. I freeze food for the winter, make jams, pickles, etc so that I know what is in my food, as well as saving mega dollars by doing this.
7. I go to thrift stores first, when I need something, before even considering purchasing new.

From Valerie Heck:

I buy old furniture at the goodwill and restore, clean it up, repaint and add some new drawer pulls if needed. That way the furniture is made of real wood, lasts longer, and it’s recycling! I also do all the repairs around the house (I’m the woman in the relationship). I figure I’ll give it a try to fix things and if it really can’t be done by me I can call someone. So far I’ve patched drywall, taken down wall paper, put up a rod in the closet, and much more. I love fixing things up myself.

Thank you to everyone who is sharing their cheap living stories, keep ’em coming, you can’t win unless you enter!

Katy Wolk-Stanley

“Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without.”

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In Freeganism I Trust — A Guest Post by Lauren Weber, Plus a Book Giveaway!

by Katy on February 14, 2010 · 53 comments

The following is a guest post by Lauren Weber, author extraordinaire of the fabulous In Cheap We Trust: The Story of a Misunderstood American Virtue. (You can find more info at her website www.laurenweber.com.)

Thank you very much to Lauren Weber for writing this pice for The Non-Consumer Advocate, and to her publisher Little, Brown and Company for providing the book for this giveaway!

To win a copy of Weber’s book, just describe in the comments section what you do to live your life in a cheap manner. I will randomly pick a winner Wednesday, February 16th at midnight Pacific time zone. Sorry foreign non-consumers, this giveaway is just for U.S. residents. One entry per person please.

Katy Wolk-Stanley

“Use it up, wear it out, maker it do or do without.”

In Freeganism I Trust

Visitors to my New York City apartment are usually subjected to a tour of my trash-picking treasures. There’s the goo-covered metal table that I lugged home from Chelsea (on a subway and then a bus) and scrubbed clean with a steel sponge; the vintage cotton kimonos my sister and I fished out of a garbage can in the East Village; and the 300-pound antique dental cabinet I dragged 6 blocks home, enlisting the help of several kind Samaritans and sacrificing a toenail along the way.

I’ve never been squeamish about taking furniture or clothes out of garbage piles. But for a long time I drew the line at dumpster-diving for food. That just freaked me out a little too much.

That is, until I started writing a book about frugal living in the United States. As part of my research, I began going on regular “trash tours” with freegans, a band of anarchists who try to live outside “the money economy” (they squat in buildings instead of paying rent, and scavenge basics like food, clothes and bikes).

I thought I was pretty hip to how much stuff Americans throw away every day. But I was totally unprepared for the amount of food waste – much of it in perfectly good shape – I saw on trash tours. In front of one supermarket, we found a bag filled entirely with muffins, donuts and pastries. All my reservations flew out the window as I stood on the street corner with a cinnamon roll in one hand and a croissant in the other, alternating bites. A few more went into the bag I’d brought along with me.

I was more nervous about the veggies, but then one night I found myself elbow-deep in a bag of lettuce. Sure, some of the bunches were turning brown. But there were plenty of fresh greens in there, and with a little judicious tearing, we were able to hand out a few salads’ worth of lettuce to over a dozen people.

At a gourmet food chain called Garden of Eden, employees regularly set out massive black trash bags stacked with the day’s prepared foods. On any given night, we might find dozens of containers of soups and sandwiches that had just hit their sell-by date (and I have a feeling markets are skittishly conservative about those dates anyway).

My trash scores eventually included baguettes, bagels, pastries, limes, veggies, containers of hummus, tubs of mascarpone cheese, a sack of vine-ripened tomatoes, an organic cauliflower, a challah bread that I turned into French toast for a few days, fresh sage, walnut bread and cheese-scallion muffins from my favorite organic bakery, a never-opened 10-oz. bar of Scharffenberger’s baking chocolate, and sealed bags of parmesan-garlic pita chips thrown out for no apparent reason (maybe a new shipment arrived and the store had run out of shelf space?).

I still occasionally go diving on my own, though I’ve never fully conquered my self-consciousness (I’ve even thought of nonchalantly saying to people who stare, “oh, I threw out my wedding ring by accident.”). And I’m happy to say I’ve never gotten sick from anything I found in the garbage, and neither have any of the freegans I interviewed.

So if you can handle feeling a little embarrassed (and, really, isn’t the waste the embarrassing part?), think of dumpster-diving as an amazing source of fresh, edible free food. Here are a few tips for novices, gleaned from experts and experience:

  • Going through trash is legal as long as it’s on public property, such as a sidewalk. Dumpsters in parking lots are a little trickier, so tread carefully.
  • Stay away from household and restaurant trash; stick to markets and bakeries.
  • Go out after 9 PM, when most supermarkets are closing or putting out their trash.
  • Bring a friend; there’s confidence in numbers, and it turns your outing into an adventure.
  • Feel the bags first to get a sense of what’s in them; often, you can tell if a bag holds loaves of bread, firm produce, prepared foods – or just garbage.
  • Wear latex gloves if you’re nervous about germs or food slime; however, it’s a lot easier to judge what you’re feeling if your hands are naked (and if you cared that much about germs, you probably wouldn’t be rooting through trash in the first place).
  • Always untie the bags; never rip them. And re-tie them when you’re done. Leaving a mess is rude and annoys store managers and sanitation workers.
  • Bagel shops and bakeries are gold mines. Those signs that say “Baked fresh every day?” That means they’re tossing out the leftovers every night.
  • Bruised fruit and vegetables can almost always be rescued. Think smoothies and stews.
  • To be on the safe side, do like freegans do and dive as a vegan – don’t take meat, fish or dairy (I break this rule occasionally when it comes to cheese).

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It’s all in the Jeans

by Katy on February 13, 2010 · 33 comments


I went out for a day of thrift store shopping yesterday with the singular goal to buy myself a pair of jeans. Unlike the sterotypical American woman, I find zero pleasure in clothes shopping. In fact, I derive negative pleasure in clothes shopping. The net result of this is that I tend to err on the side of not having enough clothing, especially with pants.

So a clothes shopping did I go.

I aimed the mini-van in the direction of a hipster neighborhood, as I figured that the donations would be better.

My first stop was a thrift shop that prices their clothing less than Goodwill, (plus I had a gift certificate) and although I did bring two pairs of jeans into the dressing room, I didn’t find anything that either fit or was the style I had in mind.

Next stop was the Goodwill thrift store, where I found three pairs of jeans that looked like they might fit. (Jeans shopping does make me feel like I have body dysmorphic syndrome, as almost every pair is either way too big or way too small!) One pair even had a black tag, which meant it was half price. I went into the dressing room without much faith, but came out with a smile on my face and a half-off pair of  jeans slung over my arm. And not just any jeans, but a perfectly fitting pair of brand new looking Levi’s mid-rise boot cut jeans, which in case you were wondering — are not mom jeans.

And the price? $3.49. Cause yeah, they were the half price pair.

Some times it is all in the jeans.

Do you ever buy second hand clothing? If so, what was your greatest score? Please share your stories in the comments section below.

Katy Wolk-Stanley

“Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without.”

{ 33 comments }

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