This New York Couple Makes Over $3,000 a Month Dumpster Diving

Imagine being able to bring in an extra $3,000 a month just by digging through things thrown away by others. This is exactly what one New York couple has perfected!

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Dave and Erin Sheffield live in Buffalo and both of them have full-time jobs, but when they get some free time, they sift through things that other people have thrown out and turn into a profit.

For more than a decade, Dave and Eric have spent their free time combing through dumpsters, mostly ones found in the back of large stores, and have found everything from scrap metal to designer handbags which they’ve turned around and sold for a profit.

Dave and Erin told Business Insider that their love of dumpster diving goes back to before the pandemic made it cool. Way back. The couple actually started digging through garbage while still in college after discovering that fellow students often tossed perfectly good items away at the end of the semester.

Erin explained to Business Insider that they would collect clothing that college students were throwing away and if the clothes had tags still on them, “We would try to sell them. And then if they gave us around $20 or $40 or something small, we would be really really excited.”

The couple is so invested in dumpster diving and the additional money it brings in each month that they have created a map of the best dumpster located around their town and they made a habit of visiting those dumpsters at least twice a week.

If you’re thinking of jumping into dumpster diving, you should know that most of the money that Dave and Erin make is through selling the scrap metal that they collect not so much from the smaller items.

Dave and Erin told Business Insider two of their biggest money makers were an authentic Prada purse which they sold for $500 and a truckload of college textbooks that garnered $1,000.

Before you take on dumpster diving in New York, there are a few things that you need to know first.