This is a guest post written by my friend R. She’s an awesome person, and we love bouncing frugal ideas off each other.

Hi, this is a guest post from a friend of Penny’s. I live near where Penny does, my husband works

at an hourly job for a relatively low salary, I’m currently looking for work, and we live in a

relatively expensive area of the city. Oh, and we don’t have financial support from family.

Naturally, this combination lends itself to a frugal lifestyle, by necessity. Penny has become my

frugal guru in addition to being one of my closest friends.

Although my husband and I are relatively newlywed and don’t have children yet, we do plan to

eventually, and I have enjoyed collecting baby things for free or cheap since I’ve been married,

even knowing we don’t need them yet. Neighborhood bulletins and email lists are good for this;

just a couple of days ago I went to a previously-­unheard-of neighbor’s moving sale. I got a pack-
and-­play, a bib, a play mat, a baby carrier, a nursing pillow, and some baby lotion, plus a first-aid

kit, for a combined price of just over 20 dollars—and then I messaged Penny, begging her to let

me show off my frugal skills by writing a guest post.

Before that, as Penny can attest to (because she borrowed it once) we dumpster-dived a stroller for

free. And my mother ­in ­law, who has been wanting to be a grandmother since we got married (my

husband is an only child), gave us a bunch of baby things as a wedding gift. And none of this even

takes up much space, because the pack-and-­play, the biggest baby item thus far, can be folded up

and stashed in a corner somewhere, and the stroller lives outside.

Other than baby things, we dumpster-dive whenever we can. My husband is forever bringing

home interesting books he finds lying around, and our home is decorated in part with pictures that

he picked up beside dumpsters—glancing around, I’m counting six dumpster-­dived pictures on our

kitchen/living room wall.

And earlier this week, he “hit the jackpot” in dumpster-diving! I was really confused when I went

to do laundry and saw a bunch of clothes I didn’t recognize, but he told me that he’d picked it all up

for free near his workplace—4 pairs of pants that look like they’ll fit him, and a suit jacket, all in

good condition! I’m sending them to a seamstress to take them in a tiny bit, but that’s only going to

cost around ten dollars, and my father is bringing me a sewing machine when he comes to visit this

fall, so soon I won’t even have to spend that, AND I can start making my own clothes. Yay

frugality.

What have you dumpster dived recently? What was your best dumpster score, or other amazing score that you got free, even if not from a dumpster?