Taking saving to the extreme - becoming a Freegan!

jumblejack

Anyone still do this?

seabright

I would, but I never see anywhere that I can do it!

rachbc

I had a bf who did this years ago before it even had a name!

plum Pie the 3 M&S I frequent still reduce stuff...

hermum

A friend of mine used to & he'd bring boxes of stuff to me most evenings that I shared with another friend & her 4 kids.
Always loads of boxed birthday cakes, bread wrapped, dented tins, fruit & veg, I never had a problem with it.
Then 1 evening my friend & I decided that we would go ourselves, laugh we almost wet ourselves.
I was working in a job where I had to have a police check, so we were really scared of being caught. Big scarves pulled up over our faces, hats down low, gloves not only to protect from any dangers lurking in the bin but also to make sure we didn't leave fingerprints.
I parked streets away, went through some woods & a field to get there. Finally got there, my friend hoisted me up, we were giggling like hormonal schoolgirls.
Our haul was a rotten bulb of fennel the bu55ers had emptied the bins early that night.
We were savage & too chicken to ever try it again. So that was the end of my freegan career.
I would certainly eat stuff from them. It's criminal what gets wasted.

seabright

We are skip fairies and I'm sure Other OS'er are too. My current best finds are a lovely old chest of drawers, some mahogany door frames and a big bundle of recent glossy mags.

What have you found?

Pink.

Hi seabright,

I've never taken anything from a skip but these threads will show you what others have found:

Skip diving...have you ever?

Bargains from the skip !!!!!

I'll add your thread to one of those once you've had more replies to keep the posts together.

Pink

saveabobortwo

a skip but from today i shall be looking:T

ceridwen

Not from a skip - but left out with the rubbish when a rented house became vacant again - I got a small white-painted wooden chest. Gave it a fresh coat of paint and its multipurpose - strong enough to act as seating and I store things in it and have my stereo sitting on top of it.

I think thats fair enough - because I leave bigger usable things out by my rubbish and they've often been taken before the dustbin men turn up.

When I put stuff out - I do appreciate it if someone actually rings the doorbell and asks if they can have it though and says "Thank you" for it I must admit. The most amusing experience was when I chucked out a horrible/old-fashioned/positively greasy with dirt coffeetable (not mine I hasten to add - it had been left behind a lodger when they moved out). Two very well-mannered little tots of about 6 years old rang my doorbell and asked if they could have it - goodness only knows what they wanted it for and what their mother made of it when they brought that home - LOL..

GreyQueen

I got a bicycle wheel which I thought I'd use for a plant support but decided was too good so advertised it on Freecycle and it was taken by a delighted guy who was building his own bike. It's somewhere in the city, serving a useful purpose.

I got a small chest of drawers which turned out to be a storage until for cassette tapes. It had dozens of tapes in it, including packets of unopened BASF tapes (this was a few years ago).

I've salvaged countless pine bedsteads which have been used for building materials and one, scrubbed and reassembled, is being used by a friend.

A working Dyson vac which I cleaned and sold for £35.

A wooden frame and canvas wardrobe which was actually beside a skip. Cloth laundered and frame scrubbed, into my home a few weeks before I moved. No roo mfor it as furniture in the new flat. The wooden frame was turned into slatted shelves in my airing cupboard and the cloth into a door curtain with some still spare.

And a whole load of kitchenware from the student house, mainly stainless steel and Pyrex stuff in excellent condition. Students will be dumping so great kit in the next few weeks; keep your eyes peeled.

Yup, I do like a good skipping session.

Busybody

[QUOTE=d

why can't we designate one day a year that we can put out items that we don't want and anyone can take it for free.[/QUOTE]

They do that twice a year in Austria where my sister lives :j