Emelie and Jon Watson have taken the ethos of "living with less" to an impressive new level.

The Brisbane couple and their two children are radical adopters of the growing sustainability movement in Australia.

They live car-free, dumpster-dive for groceries, aggressively thrift shop for clothes and have avoided buying "brand new" since 2008.

It's not a glamorous lifestyle. But the money they save affords the Watsons a life they always dreamed of having.

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"Living simply and inexpensively has given us the opportunity to give far more and do more good," Jon told Nine.com.au.

"Our overall lifestyle involves quite minimal consumption, but it's not a sacrifice."

"We are very, very lucky in Australia to have so much. And just because we can [consume so much] doesn't mean we should," Emelie added.

Emelie and Jon are mortgage-free and are able to choose when they work.

To fund their family's lifestyle, they take up casual or part-time jobs relief teaching and in engineering, jointly earning about $190,000 per year.

"We've only ever worked a maximum of four days a week for a year," Jon said, adding that the couple is now "trialling retirement".

There's no need for full-time hours when they rarely spend money on groceries.

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Meat, bread, fruit, vegetables and everything in between can be found discarded in a waste trip near the supermarket loading docks.

The family, on average, will spend less than $40 per week on extra food they may need – but say they go weeks without spending a cent.

"A year's worth of dumpster diving for our family of four saves us between $7,000 and $10,000 on groceries," Jon said.

"From Friday night until Sunday or Monday morning, we go twice a day, morning and night, until we find that the bin has been replenished."

Emelie said it is "startling" to see just how much edible food goes straight into the bins of an evening.

Supermarkets habitually throw out food that is either past its "best before" date or are slightly imperfect.

"We've shared some of our spoils with other people who've not been into dumpster diving, and when they see the quality of the food that we get out of the dumpster and the quantity, they're shocked," Emelie said.

"There's no compromise really on our diet or our nutrition," Jon added.

"In fact, we probably eat better eating what we take out of the waste stream than what we would normally."

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