VERDANT.NET

A 100% non-commercial Site

 

Overcoming

Ideas for personal, family and community economic survival while maintaining middle class standards of living.

Frugal living, organic food, Anti-consumerism,
 community activism, maintainining high standards of living with less environmental impact.

 

Consumerism is a pattern of behavior that helps to destroy our environment, personal financial health, the common good of individuals and allows the destruction of civic and political institutions.

This site details methods that you can use to help defeat consumerism, save money, work less and lead a more satisfying and environmentally benign life while you restore your economic self-sufficiency and strength of your community.

We showcase resources that can help the reader become a better-educated citizen and grassroots activist starting from any level of commitment and knowledge.

In addition, we present techniques that you can use, which can also protect yourself and your community against external economic changes forced upon us.

Those that continue to play by obsolete rules in the economy are in a losing game. Learn how to create your own game and use the rules that benefit you.

Online since 1995  

Being updated as of Sept 2021  

Here are the pages of our site.

How consumerism affects society

What does overcoming consumerism accomplish?

Active resistance to consumerism

Two comparative families show the effects of consumerism

How to grow your own food

Is it acceptable to steal from a large corporation?

Consumerism in the Arts

Our Dumpster Diving Page

The Alternate Economy

A solution for the high cost of living though shared housing

Extreme Recycling techniques

Open Source Software

Easy hands-on methods to save resources and money

Resources/References for Education and Action

Radical Anti-Consumerism

Cars

Why we shut off your polluting engine and where to find the keys

How to Raise and Plant at no cost.

Corporate influence and interlocking boards of directors

Arguments against the use of styrofoam products

quotes from various books referred to in our site

Who we are & our own personal consumer choices.

Who to cite for school papers.

Consumption chart to print and help quantify how much you use

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People who were in the once comfortable Middle Class and even relatively Well Off Class--The Precariat --now suffer and face lingering economic death as the changing rules of society make them irrelevant, poverty bound, and the wealth of our nation drifts upward to the top 1%. Continue the economic trends of the last five years into the future.

What will your life be like if you and others change nothing?

Letter from a reader: "The government stiffed the middle class with policies that jeopardized our futures. Not willing to spend to support those overpaid CEOs. I'm struggling to live on what I get from Social Security after being tossed out of the workforce at 57 thanks to the 2008 Great Recession. I don't get as much SS as I would have had I been able to work until 65. So I don't have a lot of money to support corporate america. I drive a 12 year old car. I have no pension because I wasn't in a union. I buy what I need to feed myself and keep a roof over my head. My roof is a double-wide mobile home I ordered in 1989. It needs some repairs and I'm using my money to make those repairs. I have no debt. I'm 68 and hoping to check out at 80 because I will probably have outlived my savings account by then. It got hit really bad in the Great Recession years because I was in the stock market. Pulled out in 2010 and will never go back. I don't feel that our government or corporate america has been kind to the worker. So yeah, I owe corporate america NOTHING. Ditto for the government"

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Our original home page from 1995.

Amplified descriptions and pictures