Would you go dumpster diving to feed your family or to stretch your grocery budget? There's a very provocative post over on the MSNBC site right now featuring a white-collar worker who claims to have cut his annual grocery bills in half by scavenging packaged food that grocery stores have thrown out.
What blew me away was some of the things this guy's found over the years, including 19 frozen and completely bagged turkeys that a grocery store pitched out on Thanksgiving night. Considering the shortages many food banks and pantries are facing nationwide, it seems unbelievable to me that a company would rather toss perfectly good food than get the good PR associated by donating it.
At the same time, it's possible that legal complications around donating expired food could be an issue too -- when I worked for Starbucks, we donated leftover pastries to our local food bank, but the packaged sandwiches couldn't be donated for that very reason.
I know couponers who will sort through recycle bins to get coupon inserts that have been tossed out, so do you think this a natural progression of ways to save money, or a hard and fast line that you wouldn't cross? I'd love to hear your thoughts on this, either in the comments section or over on the San Antonio Budget Grocery Facebook page.
Read the entire MSNBC article, "When money ran short, this dad started Dumpster diving", here.
If it came to feeding my family, I would do whatever it takes without breaking the law. When I worked at Safeway, I was appalled at the amount of merchandise that was tossed. I have gone dumpster diving for non-food items, sometimes with the store's blessing.
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