Something From Nothing Log

[Jin+Guice]

Wait, is this mostly a dumpster diving log?!?

[davtheram12]

Wait, is this mostly a dumpster diving log?!?

It would appear that way

[Ego]

Wait, is this mostly a dumpster diving log?!?

Kinda yes and kinda no.

I think of it like a mix of the thread What would you do if you were zeroed out tomorrow? and One Red Paperclip.

Our last red paperclip....

We just booked the place for a month (late July- late Aug) in Paris, a few blocks from The Sorbonne in the Latin Quarter. We will arrive just in time for the finish of the Tour de France. It costs $1680 for the month which is a lot of money. We'll be spending most of July in Ukraine which should lower our average significantly in preparation for the Paris splurge.

I earmarked most of the Something From Nothing funds in an account that pays our Airbnb bill. While I know intuitively that I am just playing a psychological game with myself, I enjoy knowing that this is trash-funded.

Our next Something From Nothing funded adventure.

A few weeks ago, I bought a painting for $1 from a couple of trash pickers who I had never seen before. Normally, I research artists before buying art. In this case, I did not bother after they told me the price. The frame was worth $1. When I got it home, I did a little research and found it to be by a famous artist, someone my art-seller friends all knew. The week before last, I sold it. The sale covered the cost of our monthlong VW campervan rental in Europe, with a little left over for gas money.

A second painting (paid $15) sold last week. The sale will cover the remainder of the trip, including lodging, food, and airfare.

[Jin+Guice]

Nice, just dumpster dived a 70ish eggs, some half and half I'll hopefully make into yogurt and a bunch of cauliflower chips.

Am I allowed to ask and share tips here or is this only for showing off treasure?

[Ego]

@J+G, Absolutely, please share tips!

[Jin+Guice]

Oh, I was going to ASK for advice, haha. My instinct is still to try to go for stuff that I will actually use, which is pretty specific and limited. Maybe I am being foolish not going for stuff that I can sell though?

Do y'all find appliances and furniture often? What about tools/ "construction" supplies (like paint or screws or something) and craft supplies?

It seems like being able to discern quality would be important and also know what works and what doesn't. How did y'all develop this skill?

Do y'all mostly find stuff that works or are you good at refurbishing?

How did y'all develop the skill of knowing what will resell?

What method are y'all using for resale?

How do you not end up with hoarder pile (this is a bit of a problem for me, though having a few years experience in food and clothes has helped me tone it down)?



The only thing I'm good at dumpster diving is food, but I am really good at it. I imagine this is the key to most waste stream insertion, but the hardest part is finding a source because most grocery stores have compactors. There is so so so much waste, but people are super weird about giving you access to it. If you find 1 diveable American sized grocery store you can feed yourself and everyone you know as long as that store remains diveable. Honorable mention is dollar stores and pharmacies, which almost always have dumpsters, though they don't tend to carry much healthy food.

The hardest part is not taking too much food and not taking unhealthy food. It was easy for me to avoid the sweet section of the grocery store and mentally not want to spend money on unhealthy. It's a lot harder when there is a fresh bag of pastries sitting undisturbed at the mouth of the dumpster.... And this happens almost every day.

I'm really good at knowing whether or not food is edible. If you're the kind of person who smells milk instead of throwing it out after the expiration date, you're probably good enough at this to dumpster dive. I've dumpster dove my food for almost 3 years and never gotten sick. I don't eat meat, but I've made a few exceptions out of curiosity to see if I was able to tell if meat was good and I have come away fine every time.

[Ego]

Maybe I am being foolish not going for stuff that I can sell though?

I figure if I stumble upon something I can flip relatively quickly and effortlessly, I might as well pick it up.

Do y'all find appliances and furniture often? What about tools/ "construction" supplies (like paint or screws or something) and craft supplies?

I try to avoid furniture as it is big and does not sell quickly. Rarely do I sell tools. Paint and supplies, never.

It seems like being able to discern quality would be important and also know what works and what doesn't. How did y'all develop this skill?

Trail and error. I also watch what causes others to get into a frenzy and try to understand what they are seeing and how they are seeing it.

Do y'all mostly find stuff that works or are you good at refurbishing?

I try to find things that can be sold as is but we have gotten good at minor fixes for some things.

What method are y'all using for resale?

In person to friends, ebay and craigslist.

How do you not end up with hoarder pile (this is a bit of a problem for me, though having a few years experience in food and clothes has helped me tone it down)?

Every so often I take a big load to the swap meet and sell. Last Friday I sold the entire contents of a 10' Uhaul before 10am.

[Jin+Guice]

Thanks for the answers!


Ah, the tools, appliances, paint, furniture and craft supplies are some of the few things I am doing without or buy.

Do you get most of the stuff you use from diving/ swapping?

[Ego]

Do you get most of the stuff you use from diving/ swapping?

Ideally, I would like to find things in the trash. If not, then second hand. If not, then either do without it, or buy a discounted/refurbished new item.

Trash > Second Hand > New

We get a lot of clothing from the trash. A tenant with a love of Nordstrom's, who was about the same size as Mrs. Ego, moved across country a while back and threw out trash bags full of nice clothing in perfect condition. When Mrs. Ego wears one of the items she says, "I got this from the Jessica collection at Nordstrom's". When I look around our home, maybe 3% is trash picked by us.

When the things we find in the trash are not suited to our needs, we sell them and use the funds to buy things second-hand. Some of the Jessica collection at Nordstrom's was sold on eBay for an average profit of about $15 per piece. Items not suitable for resale on eBay went to the swap meet where pieces sold for $3-5.

About 90% of the things in our home were purchased second-hand. These purchases were paid with funds earned by selling things we found in the trash or by reselling items we purchased second-hand that other people diverted from streams of waste.

About 40% of our calories comes from "used food".

ETA, I was thinking about this while running today and realized that we purchased a new car in 2012 which is still going strong, have phones that were purchased new, as well as one of our computer. So we still have quite a bit of room for improvement, as these were rather large ticket items for us.

[davtheram12]

Trash > Second Hand > New

Likewise. I get really lucky when it comes to trashed and discarded items. Some of my best finds were within walking distance from my apartment. My greatest hits include like-new Subaru BRZ rims and tires, 2012 Apple MacBook Pro, 4 video game consoles, a 1990 Yashica T4 Carl Zeiss 35mm Film Camera, a Danby wine cooler, dyson DC33 upright vacuum and Dyson V6 handheld vacuum, 10 pieces of Lululemon clothing and much more. I find myself buying fewer new items since there seems to be an endless amount of discarded items.

[7Wannabe5]

My instinct is still to try to go for stuff that I will actually use, which is pretty specific and limited. Maybe I am being foolish not going for stuff that I can sell though?

One of the core themes of "Discards: Your Way to Wealth" is that businesses and individuals will necessarily create waste at the boundary of their definition of purpose. So, the more "hats" you wear OR the more your social/trading circle includes wide variety of humans/businesses/markets, the more likely you will be able to find value in a wide variety of waste streams or process maximum value from any given waste stream.

Obtaining and maintaining access to a variety of markets is IMO the key to moving into selling. For instance, the outlets that Ego mentioned making use of will cover the range of small and valuable (eBay), large and valuable (Craigslist), and mixed size, not so valuable (flea market.) My sister and I frequently considered the possibility of selling the used books we acquired that weren't valuable enough to list/store/ship for internet sales at a live flea market type outlet, but the opportunity cost was too high, so we usually just dumped them back into friends of the library sale cycle. OTOH, if/when I have had an active permaculture project going, all sorts of stuff typically found in dumpsters or on curbs became valuable to me if it could be composted or it might block weeds or it could hold water, etc.

Do y'all find appliances and furniture often? What about tools/ "construction" supplies (like paint or screws or something) and craft supplies?

Appliances and furniture are more likely to be dumped when people are moving. So university move-out week is a good time to check the curb and large apartment complexes are a good place to check next to the dumpsters. The last day of an estate sale can be a good time to get very low price on miscellaneous stuff like recently deceased human's collection of screws, paint, knitting needles, or laundry detergent (or you could watch/wait for the dumpster likely to arrive once the sale is over.) In my neck of the woods, church rummage sales are also a very cheap outlet for miscellaneous craft supplies.

It seems like being able to discern quality would be important and also know what works and what doesn't. How did y'all develop this skill?

A combination of experience and interest/intuition in a given realm. It can also be important to develop a niche in environments where it is likely you will have competition. For instance, there are more dealers who are knowledgeable about history books than math books.

How do you not end up with hoarder pile (this is a bit of a problem for me, though having a few years experience in food and clothes has helped me tone it down)?

By keeping track of rates of flow, processing time to sale or usefulness, and overhead costs such as storage. For instance, I have become very aware of when I am using dry/heated/cooled space to store something that could be in a garage/shed/outside-storage-locker or even uncovered and the alternate possibilities for space and my time. The best rule to follow is to not bring something home even if it is free and potentially valuable without simultanesouly committing the time in your schedule for processing it and the space for storing it until it leaves the boundary of your realm of control. Sometimes this is easily accomplished because you already have a routine/practice/place for processing/storing a find of its kind in place, maybe books and blueberries, but other finds such as quilting material or lamp with frayed cord will require a new commitment of time and space long with associated calculation of rate of flow. If you pick up the lamp with a frayed cord with the thought "Kind of cool. Maybe I can sell it on Craigslist.", you need to create a well-defined Stuff I Am Going to Fix and Then Sell on Craigslist Space, maybe a taped off section of your basement, and another space for Stuff Currently for Sale on Craigslist, and also time on your schedule you will commit to Fixing Stuff towards Sale of Craigslist and another for Listing Stuff on Craigslist and another for Selling Stuff on Craigslist, etc. etc. Then you eventually have to figure out if the space and time you are devoting is worthwhile. "Might come in useful someday" is definitely not a functional heuristic.

[Jin+Guice]

The best rule to follow is to not bring something home even if it is free and potentially valuable without simultanesouly committing the time in your schedule for processing it and the space for storing it until it leaves the boundary of your realm of control.

...

"Might come in useful someday" is definitely not a functional heuristic.

I need to tattoo these on the inside of my eyelids.

[Jim]

It seems like being able to discern quality would be important and also know what works and what doesn't. How did y'all develop this skill?

In my experience, the ability to profit from the waste stream (or from the dregs of craiglist/FB marketplace/Ebay) is about acquiring knowledge or repair skills in a specific area. People choose to discard valuable objects because they don't have the awareness to recognize the value, or they don't have the ability to repair it. The wrong way to go about it is to discover something free and bring it home because you think it may have some value.

One of my closest friends growing up was a WWII nerd and, as a teenager, made a tremendous amount of money buying and selling WWII uniforms and equipment online and at flea markets. As an example, he once saw an ebay listing for a generic set of WWII era boots. Because he was able to identify them as an extremely rare set of unissued paramarine boots, he was able to buy them for a song and eventually resold them to a museum. Educating the potential buyer is important and if you know what you have, it's easier to do that. My wife finds designer clothes at the thriftstore and resells. They obtain knowledge about a thing and leverage that to turn profit, becoming middlemen.

I don't have much interest in this kind of perceived value, so I gravitate towards objects whose function gives them value. Most auto techs I know routinely buy cars with known problems that they are able to repair with minimal effort, leveraging a specific skillset to turn a profit. If you became an expert in replacing head gaskets on Subarus, for example, you can make a lot of money, because subaru head gaskets go bad all the time and cause people to sell their cars because they don't want to pay for the repair. If you learned small engine repair you could probably do very well obtaining free equipment and selling them (chainsaws, generators, logsplitters, etc). I love saving this broken things from the dump, and enjoy it even more when they go on to have a long service life.

Do y'all find appliances and furniture often? What about tools/ "construction" supplies (like paint or screws or something) and craft supplies?

Do y'all mostly find stuff that works or are you good at refurbishing?

All the time. It's easy to find appliances and furniture online, especially if you live in an affluent area.

Construction supplies can be challenging. Habitat for humanity is a pretty good resource if you're looking for something specific. It can be difficult to find certain materials completely free.

I pick up a lot of dimensional lumber for free. It's super easy to get entire cedar fence panels from contractors installing new fences, if you have a way of transporting them. Sometimes they''ll even deliver to your house if it's convenient. It's cheaper for the contractor than going to the dump. It's easy to find very high quality wood flooring at about 100sq feet at a time (that's how much people usually have leftover after they refloor their 2000 sq foot home). Construction materials are out there, but are usually more difficult to obtain without a pickup truck. I find that construction materials seldom have good, or any, resale value.

Some of my smaller tools are purchased, but all my large machines came free often broken. My table saw for example I found on the side of the road. I built a stand for it and replaced the bearings, motor and blade, and now I have a fantastic saw. I think it's about 100 years old too. I built a metal cutting bandsaw out of a broken 14" wood band saw and a gear reduction motor I bought on ebay. I could probably keep listing things like this forever. Tools can have decent resale value, but I typically only obtain this kind of thing if I'm planning to use it.

How do you not end up with hoarder pile (this is a bit of a problem for me, though having a few years experience in food and clothes has helped me tone it down)?

I think this is mostly about not acquiring things that you don't have a plan for. If you obtain something that you have an immediate use for, it won't end up in a pile.

I don't obtain anything that I don't have a place to store, an organizational system for or an in intention to use it immediately. If I get a bunch of dimensional lumber from a demo job, I take it home, pull all the nails, cut the ends flush, and stack that shit in the pile of dimensional lumber that lives in my back yard. If I obtain a large bucket of random hardware, I take it home and sit in front of my hardware storage bins until everything has a place to live. If I buy something broken that I'm going to fix, I usually put it right in the middle of my shop so I don't do anything else until it's been adressed. If I obtain something that I intend to sell, I try to list it immediately or as soon as I've fixed it or dolled it up.

[guitarplayer]

Today we were walking in the Glasgow City Centre checking out murals (Glasgow is sort of well known for its murals in the city centre). DW had spotted a hat on the lawn we were passing in a hotel part of the city centre and with her eagle eye decided this had to be something good. Went back, picked it up and checked the label: it’s a New Zealand hat made with 60% merino wool and 40% possum fur. They go in the UK for £35-£45. Think DW wants to hand wash it and give it a try. First time we own something made of possum fur, makes me think of Possum Living.

[Jin+Guice]

I was in NYC this weekend, found a laundry bag and some orange Jordan's on the street.

[Western Red Cedar]

I picked up a first edition of Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon with the dust cover from a little free library. I'm slowly building a collection of first editions without shelling out any money.

[C40]

So I'm currently living in place that has VERY low salaries and also quite low COL... I've noticed that, relating to the ideals, strategies, and tactics of this thread, I've started utilizing a reverse strategy. While there were times I used "Something from Nothing" strategies, there weren't many. Rather, I've started using "Nothing to Something" tactics. That is, when I have things that become waste, I try to get rid of them in ways that they become useful to other people. I guess while back in the US, in similar situations my process had less thought/consideration. It was just throwing stuff in the trash. Maybe dropping it off at a Goodwill store where I know it might go in the trash anyway. But now I live in a place where I know people will want some things I would have just considered trash/junk before. I guess I did give stuff away for free at times when I was downsizing a lot, but those were not normal times.

The simplest of these is recyclable materials. Some folks - I think it may be people who are quite poor here - ride around the city usually on bicycles looking for materials they can sell to the recycling industry. These aren't like the fully homeless guys in the US picking up metal cans, but it's similar in the work they do. Whereas in the US, when I separate materials to be recycled, it's out of a feeling of obligation. I think of the process as minimizing loss, not creating any benefit - just going through processes managed by large companies. But as I separate my recycle-able materials at home, and then put them in a bag out on the curb, I do so knowing that some old lady will spot it within an hour, be happy about it, and get some income from it. There are some similar examples of higher-value materials, now being bicycle stuff like cheap cycling clothes I won't use anymore, old tubes, tires that are like-new but that I won't use anymore, etc.

[ertyu]

I've been there. There's places where you can be so sure all will be "decomposed" and repurposed. I've found a lot of pleasure releasing my crap into the waste stream in places like that as well. You know for sure you're doing good. Besides, as a foreigner one often stands out - phenotypically, linguistically, clothing-wise. In the west, being a decomposer helps. In VLCOL places, one helps more by releasing resources further down the chain. It might cost 20 dollars to get your place cleaned 4 times a month -- and you've created a job. The economy is completely different.

[7Wannabe5]

Unfortunately, in some relatively LCOL realms there can also be a good deal of Nothing from Something or Something to Nothing, in the form of vandalism or destructive petty theft such as ripping the copper out of a public drinking fountain. Of course, this small-scale behavior is not entirely unlike the larger scale processes of colonialism and capitalism.

[Frita]

Yesterday was blustery so I put on my gear and went for a walk. After a couple hours in the high plains, I cut through a neighborhood to get to my house. And guess what? I found a submerged $20 bill in a waterlogged street gutter! When I got home, I must have been pretty stoked because my spouse guessed I found a quarter.