The Wedding Fund Grows, But Not by Leaps and Bounds

A little under two months ago, my Fiancee and I decided that we would start recycling aluminum, plastic and glass as a small supplement to our wedding fund.  Well, we got one thing right, it was small!

After nearly two months of collected water bottles, cans of coke, beer and guava juice; going to parties and leaving with garbage bags full of beer bottles, we loaded up my Dad's truck and headed to the nearest recycle center.  A few things you should know about if our new found riches inspires you to start cashing in on your old beer bottles.

Your glass should be sorted by color.  The three types of recyclable glass are clear, amber and green.  Corona would be clear, Heineken or Rolling Rock would be green and Budweiser would be amber.  As far as I can tell, the payout is the same, but it helps out the guys who work there.  They don't have an easy job, you can at least do your part.

Plastic and aluminum is the fast track to big money.  Glass is heavy, takes up more of your storage space in between trips to the recycle center, and yields very little cash.  Also, you can crush aluminum cans and smash down most types of plastic.

So, you ready for our grand total?

$18.41

That's eighteen big ones!  Plus a quarter, dime, nickel and a penny, one of each.

The breakdown based on the type of material was $8.00 for plastic, Five something for the cans, leaving about five bucks for the glass.  The glass, however, filled up more than two large garbage bags, while the cans filled up roughly two grocery bags.  Quite a difference.

Oh well, it's eighteen bucks that we didn't have last week.  And our wedding budget is now $20,018.41.  Not that we have the $20k saved, but that's our planned budget.

Man, we're going to need A LOT of cans and bottles.

Comments

[D]

Recycling is a great idea. Something to remember the money is in Copper. Do you know anyone in construction? Anyone changing out a commercial a/c & heating unit? You know a plumber?

Copper scraps are good money at over $3 per pound right now. Copper is in electrical wire and pipes. Go search and find. This could raise your savings to decent level.

[lamoneyguy]

Copper? I had no idea, thanks. I have a friend in the landscaping business. I wonder if they use copper in the outdoor plumbing. Do you know if the same recycle places take copper? Or do you have to go to an industrial recycler?

[D]

Around us their are some whom take it all and some whom cater only to the aluminum and lower priced items.

I'm sure a quick phone call to them will be beneficial. Even if they don't you can bet that they know who does.

Good Luck!

[GHoosdum]

In my area, only the metals can be recycled for money. I actually pay to have my paper, plastic, and glass recyclables picked up - about $3.00 per month. I do collect aluminum and bring it to our local recycling center. You can find aluminum in some surprising places - use the magnet test. I recently recycled two storm doors from my house (rather than throwing them away), and received about $15 for my trouble.

[Dani]

My dad was saving copper for about 2 years - he's a train engineer and found a lot of it around the yards, digging around in the dirt by the train office (it sits on a really old dump) and just coming across some of it in the woods (hunting - people will dump anything in the woods if they think no one will got caught!) and anyway, he just cashed it all in and got $6,000 for his efforts. My parents bought new windows for the house, paid some bills, and he bought a new bow and a gun...not bad eh?

[Tim]

So, um...Interest.com must be hooking you up big time to help cover most of $20k. ;) Great job man!

[pandora bracelets sale]

I won an online writing contest once, and got hard cash money. It was 25 dollars. Never won a TV or anything.

[MBT Shoes]

It's so nice to have you do all of the research for us. It makes our decision making so much easier!! Thanks.