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It could be necessary for us to employ various alternative strategies that can help us minimize consumptions and save money. We could try to embrace cooperation, sharing, freedom, social concern, generosity and strong relationships in the community. The whole community could have improved financial conditions if they minimize greed, conformity, bad competition, moral apathy and materialism. We could try to find free stuff, by using coupons and engage in a practice called dumpster diving. Although we don’t need to resort in foraging for food in the garbage bin, we could actually find many perfectly usable items in the recycle centers.
Urban foraging is the kind of activity that can help us save a lot of money. We rummage through the unused items of the offices, residences and retailers. The society has a stereotype that used goods are dirty, unsafe and not usable. However, some companies could remove equipments in near-perfect conditions, because they want to use the latest models. Urban foraging could be seen as a counterweight in society with throwaway culture. We should replace our goods with new ones, but only with usable ones. In fact, people with extreme debt problems find that they could improve their conditions by doing urban foraging.
In reality, people who are engaged in urban foraging are associated with middle class and high education. They may deliberately try to reject the consumerism values in the society. If we are in debt, it is important to consider adopting the urban foraging lifestyle, although we don’t necessarily have anti-consumerisms sentiment. All we have to do is to join a “freeganism” club and find out how they perform their activities. Many people are concerned that they will be discovered by neighbours and friends doing this. However, we could explain our condition and if our friends are good enough, they will admire our decision.
Our overall goal is to make sure that we are able to reduce our debt. Urban foraging is one of the more dramatic measures to reduce our expenses and the final goal should be to reduce our debts. By adopting this practice, we will be able to appreciate how much waste that our society has produced. We have a choice to make a difference and urban foragers are able to achieve this goal by re-using wasted resources. Urban foraging can be quite sustainable when performed during a long-term situation. We could find free stuff and by being open minded, we could find different unique ways to reduce our debt and costs of purchasing appliances and other items.
Freeganism is the more extreme form of urban foraging and people are in severe financial conditions could resort to scrounging food in the garbage can. They may find cabbage, carrot and other raw vegetables that are no longer fit visually for display on the supermarket shelves, but still edible. Many people with deteriorated financial situation need to turn into freeganism and although some people dismiss freeganism as a misplaced form of tree hugging, it is still a way to both re-use wasted resources and help people back in track financially.