My wasteful and lazy city allows me to literally "shop" outside for free and make plenty of income from it.
Here are just a few recent examples to get my point across and hopefully inspire people to keep more out of the waste.
[$80]
These roses are especially treated with dye and to stay fresh for at least one year. This set in an acrylic jewelry box sold online for $80 with local pickup. They were still fairly fresh and were repurposed as a birthday gift. Surprisingly, these retailed for $320. Apparently these are very popular with larger sets costing far more. I find that to be crazy.
Proof...
That antique bronze statue is by a famous sculptor. It'd be worth quite a bit, but part of the bow snapped off. I looked in every bag to try to find it, but had to give up. As a bonus for looking hard, I found an Apple TV.
[$155]
On a slow night, I found a black garbage bag that had about 40 video and computer games in it. Several were sealed new. This Wii Super Mario Galaxy 2 was sealed NEW and sold online within hours of listing it for $155!
The buyer said that I could've gotten $175 from him if I aimed higher. I considered getting it graded since their value skyrockets if it's near mint, but there were some minor flaws in the packaging that made me want to take the normal route.
Always proof...
[$150 + $140]
On the walk back from gym a week ago, I saw a suspicious box at the top of a stairwell that went down to a basement. I walked by it and took about 20 steps. Something in my gut told me to go back, so I did, and this is what I found...
Two Bose CD player/radios. I sold both of them within 2 days for $150 and $140 cash. They were in near mint condition after I took the dust off, and both had their remotes.
Here's one of them at home posing for it's upcoming sale...
[$500]
Two Max Mara winter coats sold for $500 cash total.
I found these, along with 2 more, and about 8 mint condition Burberry trench coats. I also found some other Burberry suit jackets and Givenchy stuff. All were in perfect condition and clearly had just come from a wealthy woman's closet. Read this again and shake your head. At least I saved them! There were several bags more, but I couldn't carry them. It also started torrentially raining just after I got these home.
The woman I sold these two originally just wanted the tan one, but I upsold her on the spot for the other for $300. The second was certainly a coat that retailed for welllll over $1,000, and she knew it, hence why she jumped at it.
Here are the two that sold. I still have a full large bin of the other stuff that'll I'll focus on selling when it's colder. My friend modeled them for me as a favor.
Again, I still have two more coats like these! It's crazy that these were tossed in a black garbage bag.
And that's $1,025 in revenue for free and for doing good...
You get the drift. These are all very recent sales. I have ~5 years of examples of these that are too much to blog about. All are free. All salvaged from the curbs here on recycling nights. Magic? Nope. I just see the opportunity all around me and put the effort in.
PS - The sealed new Xbox 360 Wolverine game also sold online for $55, but isn't accounted for in the post above.
PPS - In the same spot I found the flowers, I found a large solid pewter waste bin just last night that was made in Italy. The exact model retails for $845 so I'll probably get a few hundred for it. I literally have the eye to turn trash [bins] into treasure. Here's the product link for evidence. I also found a vintage taxidermy piranha from Brazil on a wooden stand in a full clear bag of plastics on the curbs that was miraculously in perfect shape. I'll take pics of that soon.
Thanks for your interest and support, @steemmatt
...If you missed my last two recent posts: - Tons of Legos and Minifigures for $960 cash... - Examples of nice items/food I've found and left for others to take...