FEATURE-Newly thrifty Americans go foraging, trash-diving

"Imagine all you have to do is pay the rent. And everything else is either hand me downs and swaps," Berea said.

"More people are becoming open to it," said Cindy Rosin, of Freegan.info, an informational site, adding that previously a lot of interest had been politically motivated.

Others forage for wild plants. "Wildman" Steve Brill, who leads foraging tours through New York's parks, said he's seen more people on his tours. They forage for plants such as chickweed, a low-lying weed that tastes a bit like corn, or ginko seeds.

"I never had 70 people in my tours, and yet I had three (groups of 70) last year as the economy started to spiral downwards," Brill said. "There are some people that are survivalist and there are some people that want to save money and get delicious fresh greens and berries that are organic without paying an arm and a leg."

Dylan Thuras, a 26-year-old freelance video editor who went on a recent tour with Brill in Manhattan, said he finds foraging skills "strangely comforting."

"There's a kind of fatalism going on. People like to think about what they would do if they had no job," Thuras said.

But he wondered if the idea was more romantic than practical. "I'm very dubious that you could survive on what's in Central Park." (Editing by Daniel Trotta and Cynthia Osterman)