# Do you, or would you ever consider dumpster diving or frugan living?



## Addy (Mar 12, 2010)

I realize these are two different, albeit similar things. I have dumpster dove before, and would have no or little hesitation if I found something I wanted in a dumpster. I hesitate at anything that has a high chance of harboring bed bugs, but other than that I have little hesitation.

Frugan living I would consider, as long as the food was still packaged or at least I was fairly certain it was okay (ie no needles in apples etc).

There are some interesting videos of frugans getting food and lots of other perfectly good things that stores throw out. I can post some later when I find the links.


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## marina628 (Dec 14, 2010)

I got a patio set from a home depot dumpster , one chair was missing and still had tags on it.That I don't mind but to dig in where there is rotting food and god knows what forget it.Hmmm I guess you guys are all going over to checkout the dumpsters at home depot stores now lol


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## Charlie (May 20, 2011)

I don't see anything wrong with taking something that was being thrown out if it was of use to me. Whether in an alley, dumpster, or 'free' ads. I wouldn't do it with food, however. Nor anything else where there might be a health or yuck factor. 

And I can't see it being part of my routine, nor overall financial plan.


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## kcowan (Jul 1, 2010)

I used to collect stuff that I could use to repair items around the house. When we moved, I had scrap metal dealers take all the metal. Most of the wood went to the dump. Nuts bolts et al went my friend with the half-ton pickup. We swap useful items by the dumpster but lately I am mostly a contributor. We get rid of stuff whenever new stuff is purchased. Also a regular contributor to Big Brothers.


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## kcowan (Jul 1, 2010)

I used to collect stuff that I could use to repair items around the house. When we moved, I had scrap metal dealers take all the metal. Most of the wood went to the dump. Nuts bolts et al went my friend with the half-ton pickup. We swap useful items by the dumpster but lately I am mostly a contributor. We get rid of stuff whenever new stuff is purchased. Also a regular contributor to Big Brothers.

Anyone need diskettes or Zip drives?


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## HaroldCrump (Jun 10, 2009)

kcowan said:


> Anyone need diskettes


Only if they are the original 5 1/4" ones


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## the-royal-mail (Dec 11, 2009)

<off topic>
Does everyone remember the "high density" disks were a whopping 1.44MB? Regular disks were 720KB. Amazing that we actually used those things. 

I have a USB stick here, 4GB. I recently traded a 512MB camera SD memory card to a friend for a chocolate milk and a snack. External hard drive, 320GB. Heck, one of my excel files here with numerous tabs comes in at nearly 7MB!

So it's now hard to imagine a world where 1.44MB floppies are useful. Yet it wasn't that long ago!
</off topic>


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## HaroldCrump (Jun 10, 2009)

the-royal-mail said:


> Does everyone remember the "high density" disks were a whopping 1.44MB? Regular disks were 720KB. Amazing that we actually used those things.


I earliest floppy disks I recall were the 5 1/4" 540 KB.
The 720 KB came later.
And yes, the "high density" disks were 1.44 MB, which later became the 3 1/5" diskettes.
I'm almost certain I still have a couple of the 5 1/4" 540 KB ones somewhere in the attic of my parents' home.

Ah, the good ol' days


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## Jungle (Feb 17, 2010)

Yea I found a patio bench and took it from the dumpster. I had someone help me out. I ended up selling it on kijiji. 

WHen I was a kid, I used to do this a lot.


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## the-royal-mail (Dec 11, 2009)

^I've actually wanted to do stuff like that in the past (there was recently a nice display piece that had been tossed out in the back of a store) but I didn't want to be seen by the smokers and other loiterers in the area. These people would likely run inside and complain to whomever. I may be wrong but I actually thought it was illegal to dumpster dive.


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## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

HaroldCrump said:


> I earliest floppy disks I recall were the 5 1/4" 540 KB.
> The 720 KB came later.
> And yes, the "high density" disks were 1.44 MB, which later became the 3 1/5" diskettes.
> I'm almost certain I still have a couple of the 5 1/4" 540 KB ones somewhere in the attic of my parents' home.
> ...


I remember disk 1 of 17 for some applications. The installation process was a series of insert next disk now prompts. Now you can download multi-gigabyte applications from internet distributors at no additional cost.


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## canehdianman (Apr 7, 2009)

My first computer was a Commodore 64. It came with a cassette tape deck, through which you could run programs. Each side of the tape could hold about 100kB of data.

Now I have a phone with roughly 335,000 times more memory capacity.


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## financialnoob (Feb 26, 2011)

16:9 did a piece on it a few months ago. If anyone's interested:

http://www.globalnews.ca/programs/16x9/This+Week+June+Freeganism/4950724/story.html

The food out of the garbage bags is a bit too much for me.


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## Addy (Mar 12, 2010)

Great news story, thanks for posting the link!




financialnoob said:


> 16:9 did a piece on it a few months ago. If anyone's interested:
> 
> http://www.globalnews.ca/programs/16x9/This+Week+June+Freeganism/4950724/story.html
> 
> The food out of the garbage bags is a bit too much for me.


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## daddybigbucks (Jan 30, 2011)

i couldnt see myself dumpster diving.

But i have no problem dropping a load off at the dump and finding a few "treasures" there and taking them home.


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## donald (Apr 18, 2011)

I dont think id be able to do it,id have a tough time psycholically getting comfortable with dumpter diving i wouldnt be able to keep my pride in tack,but having said that there are numerous throw away stuff thats mind boggling.

Construction sites are the worst for waste,its amazing how much crap in a job site pile is still very useable,if anybody is looking for scrap materials venture into new home sub divisions,in most cases,depending on who you talk to you usually can get away with taking abit of scrap,done in the right way and within in reason(tip for anybody looking for a few 2x4 scraps ect for whatever)


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## ChrisR (Jul 13, 2009)

A long time ago I had a friend with a "connection" at the dump. He'd get a call whenever a large shipment of food was unloaded.

Some of the things I remember:
- An entire truckload of half melted ice cream. Apparently the cooling system broke down. We threw about 10 pails in the freezer, and they re-solidified nicely.
- A truckload of beer. Each 24 had at least one (or more) broken bottles in it. We took out the good bottles and rinsed off the broken glass. Probably got about 240 bottles of beer out of it.


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## Addy (Mar 12, 2010)

ChrisR said:


> A long time ago I had a friend with a "connection" at the dump. He'd get a call whenever a large shipment of food was unloaded.
> 
> Some of the things I remember:
> - An entire truckload of half melted ice cream. Apparently the cooling system broke down. We threw about 10 pails in the freezer, and they re-solidified nicely.
> - A truckload of beer. Each 24 had at least one (or more) broken bottles in it. We took out the good bottles and rinsed off the broken glass. Probably got about 240 bottles of beer out of it.


Sweet hauls!


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## BBB (Jun 13, 2011)

I worked at one of those mini storage places a few years back, and when a renter didn't pay for 3 months and no contact could be made I was the one who cleaned them out. I found many treasures: clothes, furniture, tools, and once found a texas mickey full of change (~$200 worth). Anyone really into dumpster diving should take a part time job at one of those places, so much stuff.


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