What I find is determined in part by my mode of transportation. For example, if I was biking or driving I never would have stopped at these apartment trash bins – as you can see, there’s nothing indicating that anything good was inside. However, because I was walking I figured I might as well take a look.
Inside was a lot of regular old stinky garbage. There was also a bag of bathroom stuff (like old shampoos, a shower rack, etc), a few bags full of clothes and accessories, and a bin filled largely with loose articles of clothing. I didn’t expect much, but I decided to take a closer look regardless.
A few commenters have suggested that I always check the pockets of the clothes I find. I most often do, even though I haven’t had much luck with it historically (unless you count finding old kleenexes as a success). However, my luck changed in a big way yesterday! Below is a video I took shortly after my first discovery…
That’s five twenty dollar bills, good for 100$! I wasn’t done yet though…
That’s another 20$! I found one more 20$ bill for a total of 140$. All the bills were in breast pockets, which must have been a habit of the person who owned the clothes (I personally rarely use those pockets). I’ll keep an eye on those bins in the short-term, perhaps more clothes will get purged before the end of the month. I also saved some of the nicer clothes, by the way. They were a little dirty but some were vintage-y and might clean up okay.
That’s not the only cash I found yesterday. This pile produced a lot of quality yard sale stuff, mostly kitchenwares and knick knacks, which I may or may not get around to showing you at some point.
Anyways, inside one of the bags was a hefty sack of (mostly) pennies.
The bag weighs 2.885kg, and after I’m done writing this I’ll see what that adds up to. It’s times like these when I miss that free coin machine at TD Bank – now my only option is to use the Coinstar thing that takes 11.9 cents per dollar counted.
I don’t think the fee is worth the convenience most of the time, but when you have a bag full of pennies it’s an okay deal. Let’s say it takes a minute to roll the standard fifty pennies – that means that in the two minutes it takes to roll a dollar you’d “earn” the extra 11.9 cents not taken by the machine. Times that by 30 (or the number of two minute segments in an hour) and you get a 3.57$ hourly wage, which isn’t even close to the current minimum. Even if you were to somehow roll pennies twice as fast you’d still be earning well below minimum wage for doing so. In short, it’s really not worth the time. Rolling other coins, however is still a profitable endeavor.
Once I get this bag counted I’ll make sure to share the profit in a comment below, so take a guess now if you’re into that kind of thing!
Outside of yesterday my luck has been mediocre of late. This small haul, which included two unused frames, a small collection of coins, a digital photo frame that ultimately didn’t work (I put the digital part in my e-waste bin), a container of fondue fuel, and a Lodge 8cf cast iron deep skillet was all that came from my Friday run. Admittedly, the skillet was a great find – it needs only a light cleaning and reseasoning and sells for 62 USD new, but these kinds of hauls aren’t enough to pay the bills. Fortunately, eBay sales have kept my head above water, but I’m looking forward to the quick injection of cash that should come upon the arrival of yard sale season.
Links
1. Facebook page
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3. Etsy store
4. Kijiji listings
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Email: thingsifindinthegarbage@gmail.com. I often fall behind on emails, so I apologize in advance if it takes me a while to get back to you.