Dumpster Diving

It's always been my goal to live as cheaply as possible. Now, just because I'm in a new place and have an ample salary, that doesn't need to change.

Upon arriving, I had just about everything I might need for general living, so there was thankfully quite little to buy. My only great desire was for a chair to put on the balcony and enjoy the view, but this could wait.

However, I discovered a new hobby one evening as I was taking the trash out. I wasn't yet sure which side plastics and burnables went on, so set to inspecting the clear bags in the little garbage shed. It was then that I noticed several bags filled with clothes. "What's this? Free clothes??" Despite lieing next to rotting food waste, they were tucked safely inside their own sealed bag, so I snatched them up and went up to the apartment to dig through the new finds. It was like finding Christmas in the garbage shed! There were several cute sweaters, shirts, and skirts for future use.

After that I've been keeping an eye on garbage piles when I see them. I've since pulled out six more bags of clothes from around town to drag back home and sort through. Some are rightfully placed in the trash, but there are enough good items to make it worth the search. Using this method, there are also a lot of things that simply don't fit (children's clothes), but they can be used as fabric for craft projects in the future.

The jackpot of this project was when I was lurking around the International Student D

orm one night and discovered a heap of goods on the side of the road. It's the end of the semester, so a lot of these internationals are heading home. Where else for their stuff to go than in the trash? My car of course! When I saw this, I rushed home to drive back and load up a carful of junk. I got a table, bookshelf, tv stand, manga set, griddle, a bunch of kitchen stuff, a zillion hangers, and, after all, a chair for my balcony. I made a real racket out there piling pots, pans, and tables into my tiny car. A few people popped their heads out the door to see what was going on, only to find a fellow foreigner hard at work in carting away their things.

What'll be waiting in the next wastebin?!