I’m a professional dumpster diver and I earn $5,000 a month selling trash

One woman has made dumpster diving her full-time job – raking in $5,000 a month by digging in garbage cans and striking gold with designer items.

Veronica Taylor, 32, makes a fortune sorting through discarded items and later reselling them.

The Quakertown, Pennsylvania native first started jumping in trash cans as a hobby with longtime boyfriend Liz Wilson, 38, but quickly turned it into a thriving business.

Now the pair earn about $4,000 to $5,000 each and have found everything from Louis Vuitton purses to Michael Kors shoes.

Veronica finds it exciting to dive into the trash and describes it as a “real treasure hunt.”

She said, ‘It’s fantastic. It really is a real treasure hunt.

“You have no idea what you’re about to find. And I can hang out with my best friend and make a living finding things.”

While Veronica finds a variety of items – from food, hygiene products and luxury items, she tends to rake in the money through the designer finds.

Haar and Liz donate most of the food and hygiene products to charities and the homeless, but sell the Louis Vuitton and other luxury finds.

And search in Pennsylvania became a game changer for the two friends.

Veronica moved across the country from her previous home in California to live with Liz in Pennsylvania and make dumpster diving their full-time gig.

Veronica said, “Pennsylvania is a whole different ball game. We saved between $10,000 and $15,000 in two months.

“We find Louis Vuitton, Michael Kors. That’s in thrift stores – we thought there was no way this was in the dumpster.

“We assume it’s older people who work in the stores and don’t know much about the brands and throw them away.”

The garbage lover loves her job because she feels like she is on an endless ‘vacation’ as they often travel from city to city to find the best discarded items.

“We just spent three days in Boston searching and hanging out. Every day is just getting in the car and driving somewhere and see what we can find.

“It really is like being on vacation all the time. The typical places where we do really well, we go every night – usually from 10 p.m. to 3 a.m.

“Other days we go to rich people’s neighborhoods, it’s fantastic,” Veronica explained.

And now that she’s tasted the junk, she revealed she’ll never go back to a nine to five.

Veronica said, “We split everything 50/50 and I want to say we each get $4,000 to $5,000 a month. It’s definitely not worth having a real job for.

“There are no words to describe this, it just gives you so much freedom.”

The 32-year-old started dumpster diving in June 2022 and hasn’t given up since.

She said, ‘Liz took me out last year, she’s the reason I started. It was just a hobby to do that with her. It’s so much fun.’

After they started raking in the money, they turned their hobby into a business in February 2023, selling their salvaged items on the online auction app WhatNot.

They post their finds and live stream as people bid – often selling up to 100 items per show.

Veronica said, “It’s all auction, so people are bidding. We had a thrift store and people can send offers and we’ll take pretty much any offer since we’re already making 100 percent profit.

She added that they have also managed to make regular customers throughout the year who keep coming back to them.

Veronica added: “We also give away a lot and that’s why our supporters keep coming back, they know we’re hooking them up.”

And the duo masters auctions, making them attractive to everyone.

“Another reason why auctions are so attractive is because every item starts at a dollar. We hold a big auction every Saturday and then multiple popups throughout the week.

‘On the big promotions we sell more than 100 items and on the pop-ups we usually sell 40 to 70’, she explains.