Dumpster decorating is an excellent way to save money on buying new furniture for your already expensive new apartment. Desks, dressers, nightstands, entertainment centers and dining room tables are just some of the common furnishings you can find while dumpster diving.
One of the wonderful things about college life is that it’s ok to be broke. In fact, college students are expected to be low on funds and thus frugal. College is a time when you’re applauded by your friends (and parents) for finding inexpensive solutions or alternatives to the norm. In many ways, the college years offer great life lessons in creativity.
Dumpster diving, and particularly dumpster decorating, are alive and well on college campuses everywhere. Many a treasure has been unearthed from inside (or outside) a dumpster, particularly dumpsters at college apartment complexes around the end of the semester.
Many students choose to toss their old furniture or apartment decor rather than moving it to a new place. For that reason, a peak in your apartment dumpster may yield new treasures that are being thrown away simply out of convenience.
If diving into your complex’s dumpster isn’t quite for you, the same concept applies to curbside “recycling.” Not only college students, but many homeowners will put furniture items out on the curb, knowing that either someone will come by and take the item (for free) or the trash man will pick it up.
Cruising the streets in residential neighborhoods on trash day may seem a little weird at first, but the first time you find a great chair or book case that someone else has tossed aside, you’ll be hooked. Best of all, you don’t have to wait until dark to nab the goods. If it’s on the curb, it’s free for the taking.
Before you move your new dumpster or curbside finds into your apartment, make sure they are at least relatively clean. Stay away from old mattresses or furniture that have sat out in the rain, and remember the first rule of dumpster diving: whoever sees it first, gets it. In other words, if you snooze, you lose, so if you see something good, grab it before anyone else does.
Do you have any additional dumpster diving tips? Let us know about them in the comment section below.
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Paying for college definitely encourages a frugal lifestyle! I’m always trying to find creative ways to improve my current living situation. I live off campus in a student apartment complex, and our whole community shares the struggle of glamorizing college living. My roommates and I love crafting, so we are always competing to see who can decorate in the thriftiest ways! I know college apartments always have at least one dumpster on site, if not several. Dumpster diving might be out of the question for me personally, but I think the concept is great! And I see students leaving their unwanted things outside of the dumpster all the time. So I’ll stick to recycling, and try to find treasures without having to dig too deep…
Don’t forget Freecycle.org! It’s all about reuse and keeping good stuff out of landfills. I got a ukulele from there. (My practicing drives my roommate nuts, but I don’t really care.) Anyhow, between Hospice Attic and the Goodwill, living in my college rental has never looked so good!