Ramblings of a cheapskate!



Do you Freecycle?


If you are like me you have plenty of stuff around the house that you no longer need or want. You don’t want to just throw the item or items in the trash but you haven’t collected enough stuff to have a garage sale, nor do you want to! You’ve know the old saying “One person’s junk, is another’s treasure”; this could not be truer then with the Freecycle Network. The Freecycle Network is a non-profit, grass roots organization that organizes a worldwide network of “gifting”, with the end result of keeping reusable goods out of the landfills. The Freecycle Network is made up of 4,818 groups with 7,266,824 members across the globe with the motto “changing the world one gift at a time”. The basic concept is that you are giving or receiving what you have and don't need or what you need and don't have! It is a wonderful feeling giving something away, knowing that the person receiving it really wants it! What have I received from my local Freecycle group? Tomato plants, beautiful perennial plants for my yard (I had to dig them up but well worth the effort for these FREE plants!), an art easel/chalkboard for my son, coupons, and so much more! And better yet, a sense of community. Those plants have since grown and are now ready to split themselves, so now I can pass on the gift of free perennials others!

Using the Freecycle network is as simple as joining your local Freecycle Yahoo group, and posting and replying to members messages. Membership is free, just go to their website to find a local group near you. Once your membership is approved you can start posting messages for the items you would like to get rid of, or items you are in need of. All of the messages on your Freecycle group will be moderated and if you don’t follow the rules, you will be removed from the group.
The Freecycle network makes it easy to be green by finding a new home for your reusable goods, and may even help lower your household expenses a bit! Join the network and start “gifting” your unwanted items today!



1 comments:

Anonymous said...

You have to be careful of things like FreeCycle and Craigslist free section. Some folks are "giving away" something "for free", but in reality they should be paying you to do work they're too cheap to pay for. EG: digging up, loading and hauling off junk; tearing down brickwork to haul off; cutting down trees to haul off; digging up plants to haul off; etc. In those cases, they would normally have to pay a crew $100/hr or so to come take care of that stuff. But instead they try to sucker some idiot into doing it for them for FREE. Likewise, you need to also look at the legal rammifications of working on someone elses' property. If you're cutting down a tree for firewood, and a limb accidentally falls onto their house and damages it...the property owner could sue you. Suddenly your "free" firewood (which they should have paid a professional to chop down, but instead suckered you into doing FOR FREE) is now costing you thousands of dollars in court fees and restitution. You need to be very careful. Likewise, with things like clothes, furniture, bedding...be very careful of bed bugs, mites, etc...things that you DON'T want to get for free, b/c they cost a fortune to get rid of once you get them.

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