I'm a Frugal Dumpster Diver!

Wed, 30 Aug 2006 18:29:13 GMT

I started being frugal about 25 years ago. I got my first apartment, stopped at a yard sale and was able to find just about everything I needed for my new home all at one sale for about $20.00. From that sale on, I was hooked on yard sales.

Then I descovered the wonderful world of flea markets. I love the booths that have boxes of stuff to poke through. I seem to always be able to find some kind of treasure for about $1.00.

One day in my town they were having the big trash collection. My ex-husband and I noticed someone had thrown out some aluminum siding. We stopped to pick it up to take to recycle when I discovered that people throw out perfectly good things when I got a perfectly find beautiful lamp. From then on, I was a dumpster diver. Always watching for something good in the "trash".

Once I found a box of old pipe stems. I'm not even sure why I took the entire box, I didn't know what I was going to do with them. The box hung around my house for about a year when one day I thought I would check ebaby to see if things like that sold. To my surprise the did sell and quite well for some of them.
So I dug around in the box sorting them, making piles of 50, when at the bottom I found a pipe! I can still feel the excitement I felt when I noticed it was old, made of porcelain and had a picture of a German soldier on it. I listed it on ebay and 7 days later my highest bid was $119.00! That was just for the pipe. I sold the stems in lots of 50 getting from $50.-$80.00 per lot. I saved one stem for memories. My grand total for bringing that box of "trash" home was $1000.00! Not bad is it?

Doing My Part

I'm a Frugal Dumpster Diver!