I Went Dumpster Diving for Coupons - Really

I went somewhere I thought I’d never go for coupons – into a dumpster.

I came home from grocery shopping, Husband peeked into my shopping tote bags and said, “Why are there plastic bags and papers in these two totes? I don’t even want to know…”  

Obviously, I feel like I have to explain that I am not turning into a psycho shelf clearing maniac.

It was errand day. I dropped off our recycling at the city dumpster near our house. As I’m grousing about almost forgetting this errand twice in one day, I chuck Bag Number One into the full dumpster with a practiced sky hook.

As I’m planning the trajectory of Bag Number Two, I see them.

A stack of flyers in door bags – GOLD!

But not for the reason you think.

We’re running low on potty bags of all types. The plastic advertising door bags work well for that purpose. I also know plastic bags can jam recycling machinery and aren't wanted at recycling facilities.

I’m excited about finding free garbage - to use as garbage.

I’m weird like that.

I grab a couple of bags from the top of the bin and dump the contents of the door bags back into the dumpster.

Then I remember people talking about dumpster diving for coupons on We Use Coupons. I leaf through the sale flyers and find a coupon flyer. The coupons are not expired.

I grabbed a couple.

Truth?

I ended up with forty.

I was going for the bags! I swearz!

My coupon strategy is to clip coupons for anything we regularly use from a coupon flyer or from my online coupon database (affiliate link.) Sometimes I’ll clip something interesting if the item looks like it fits into our trans fat, hydro gated oil, high fructose corn syrup free house rule in case we need/may want to try that type of thing and it passes an in store ingredient check - with the exception of the shaving gel. 

Husband insists on a gel, even though the not so friendly ingredients drive me batty. If you know of a shaving gel with friendlier ingredients please let me know! It doesn’t have to be a brand that offers coupons. That’s the reason why I coupon. I use the savings to buy healthy things that do not go on sale/coupon.

There wasn’t much for me to clip from the stack. Clipping a coupon doesn’t mean I’ll automatically use it either.

I altered the photos because some people try to use reprints to commit coupon fraud. Don't be that guy!

What am doing with the rest of the coupons? It’s illegal to sell coupons. You can legally give or trade coupons to others free of charge though. That’s what I’m doing with the restaurant coupons. I gave a few to a friend because it’s her favorite restaurant.

I released the rest of the coupons and flyers back into the wild. I put them in my recycling bin and dropped them off at the dumpster from whence they came.

Have you even dumpster dived? Would you?

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