My $50 compost bin mistake is saving me $20 a month now

I bought this little tumbling compost bin from a garage sale for $50 last spring, and I thought it was a waste at first. It took like 3 months to get anything dark and crumbly out of it, and I almost threw it away. But now my garden soil is way richer and I stopped buying bagged fertilizer at the store. That stuff costs like $8 a bag and I was going through two bags a month during growing season. Plus my kitchen trash doesn't smell as bad since I'm tossing scraps in the bin instead. I even started collecting coffee grounds from the local shop for free to mix in. The bin paid for itself in about 3 months if you count all the fertilizer and trash bags I'm not buying. Has anyone else gotten good results from a cheap bin like this or am I just lucky?

3 comments

3 Comments

dakota_nelson4325d ago

Wait, hold on - you're telling me you actually snagged a compost bin for fifty bucks at a garage sale? That's insane. I've been looking for months and even the broken ones near me go for like eighty. You basically stole it, honestly. But the real shocker here is the coffee grounds trick. I never thought about asking my local shop for free grounds. I figured they'd look at me like I had three heads for asking. Do you just walk in with a bucket or do you have to talk to a manager or something?

rowan72525d ago

Has anyone thought about asking a roastery instead of a coffee shop? I mean, the big ones like Starbucks get hit up all the time, so their grounds are usually spoken for. But a local roastery might have way more grounds just sitting there since they go through beans constantly. I called a small place near me once and they told me to come by with a bucket anytime, no questions asked. Your mileage may vary depending on where you live, but it's worth a shot if the regular shops aren't working out.

tessa_clark7425d ago

@dakota_nelson43 right? You'd be surprised how many roasteries just want to get rid of the stuff. They go through pounds and pounds of beans daily, way more than a cafe does. My neighbor runs a roastery and he says people think they're being weird by asking, but seriously, they're happy someone wants the waste. You just gotta call ahead or walk in and ask whoever's at the counter. Say you're a gardener and you're after used grounds for compost. No need for a manager, just a regular employee can usually hook you up. Some places will even bag em up for you if you ask nice. Btw Dakota, that garage sale bin you mentioned? Fifty bucks is a score. I paid seventy for a dented one last year and thought I got lucky.