I knew dumpster diving was for the good of humanity!

So during the wee hours of my work shift I came across this article about a man who dumpster dives to save his family money.

I knew dumpster diving was for the good of humanity!

I like how he wanted to be anonymous not because he was ashamed but because he didn't want people invading on his turf. This whole article took me back to my days of dumpster diving.

It all started the summer that I was 19, just about to turn 20. I was living in St. George, UT in a ghetto apartment above a Christian Thrift Store. One morning WAY too early for an easy living college student off for the summer I was awoken by voices and other various noises. I looked out my window and there below me was an entire hispanic family in the dumpster belonging to the Thrift store. Dad, Mom, and three kids. Literally all in the dumpster. I was mostly just more annoyed than curious as to why they would all be in there scrounging around. The next weekend I was again awoken to more sounds. I looked out the window and sure enough, people in the dumpster, one guy inside handing stuff out to a woman who would inspect it and decide to keep it or trash it. This became a regular thing and I was fascinated. Every weekend I would watch in the mornings as more and more people showed up to take discarded treasures that the store decided they couldn't or wouldn't sell. Eventually my roommate and I decided to venture down after hours. We pulled out an extremely old stationary bike and various clothes and were having fashion show inside the dumpster. This of course is the part in the story where the guy I had a serious crush on rode by on his bike to visit and I'm standing inside the dumpster, wearing various items that previously belonged to who knows who and was appropriately humiliated. That was my last venture into that particular dumpster but we did snake a lot of items that were left on the curb at night.

Fast forward several years, and I'm now living as a more responsible adult with a new roommate. I came home from a meeting at church one Sunday and just happened to walk past the dumpster and outside next to it was a glorious and big green oriental chest. I wanted it. I had to have it. I ran into the apartment telling Kayla, "You have to come look at this!" I was unsure how she'd react, some people have quite an aversion to other people's trash and Kayla and I hadn't been living together very long yet. To my delight she was just as thrilled as I was and we started to take it inside. That is a whole different story that I won't bore you with but let me just say, our desire to have this chest was very strong, so strong we called in reinforcements because we were unable to lift it and we waited quite awhile for him to show up.

Later Kayla and I started taking walks around the apartment complex parking lot and I don't really know what we found next or in what order, but it became a regular thing for us. We found a variety of items; a camoflauge hat, toaster oven(brand new with plastic and instructions included), a driver side car seat with lumbar support, a mirror, a chair, an awesome carved wood jewelry box, a color printer, a mini air hockey table with all pieces included, and other things. For Christmas that year a good friend even gave us pink plastic gloves and official Dumpster Diver ID badges!

The moral of my story is that it is a really good and fun way to save. And turns out, a great bonding activity with a new roommate!