I am typing this while I have several people working in my backyard to disassemble and take away our old broken fence. How much am I paying for them to do this? Not a dime. They are doing it for free because the lady just bought a foreclosure that needs a lot of work, and has dogs but no fence in the yard. Because they are doing this, I'm going to be able to save a bunch of $ when we get our new fence installed next weekend.
We also had someone haul away our old above-ground pool for free. People pay hundreds of dollars to others to do so, but I just posted it as "FREE" on Craigslist and a metal scrapper came and got it the same day.
What are your favorite items or services that you have gotten for free?
You know, Fanged Bunny, if I just put something on the curb it rarely gets picked up, but if I post on Craigslist in the FREE section a "Curb Alert" it is usually gone within 3 hours. I'd try that when you need to get rid of stuff, or if your area has a FreeCycle, that's a great way too!
Oh yes, St. Vincent de Paul Society hauled away almost a whole garage full of stuff. Old sofas, tables, miscellaneous kitchen goods, TONS of stuff!
The Veterans of Foreign War, Lupus Foundation and Brothers and Sisters happily haul away household items for free! A win-win, we unloaded a coffee table, outdated lamps, clothes, etc. and helped an organization to boot!!
My gorgeous, high quality Dining Room table and chairs. My bosses son was getting a divorce and selling the house. He didn't want his old furniture in his new house due to bad memories. So he opened his doors and let all of us come pick out what we wanted. In exchange, we bought candles from his schools fundraiser. win-win situation.
I stopped using craigslist when I found out about Bookoo aka napervilleyardsales.com ......your town might be in there but naperville is the largest in Illinois so everyone flocks to that one......same concept as craigslist, just better IMO
when i was pregnant i really wanted a glider rocker. i told my husband he could get me one for my birthday and mothers day. my brother in law found out that one of their neighbors wanted to get rid of their glider rocker and ottoman which they still had the receipt! that was 10 years ago and it's the best free item i could have ever gotten!!!
Put out my old lawschool casebooks and studyguides on the front lawn with a sign "free, please help yourselves." no one took them, despite it being a bright sunny day, and having a lot of passers-by. Had to bundle them for recycling. Thought it was worth a shot.
thanks for the tips re: freecycle and craigslist. listing stuff for "free" here in the NYC area tends to backfire. People will call and line up pickups and then never show up. Putting something on the curb means that it tends to get ruined by passing dogs, trash, kids, and malcontents. The best way to get rid of useable stuff in this area is to cart it yourself to a salvation army or thrift shop, or to list it at some nominal cost, like $10-$25 so that people have the incentive to actually make good and pick it up.
Go figure, even free proves problematic.
F. B.
A lot of kid stuff off Freecycle. We also get rid of stuff that way. Favorite "get" though was DH's medieval-looking armoire.
Fanged Bunny - next time try Freecycle or donate to a library. If they don't put them on the shelves, they may sell them for funds for activities.
We hauled off forty cinder blocks for free once. Then there was that time we hauled off 400 bricks. We like to repurpose items and they both came in handy for house projects. We have given away an old fridge. It worked but it wasn't pretty to look at. The neighbor's lawn man loved us for that fridge. Share and share alike I say.
Our redwood swingset. A friend of a friend had kids that were getting older. She wanted the swingset gone. They had moved here from Florida when the kids were little and brought it with them. She felt they more than got there money out of it. If we took it down, we could have it. My hubby grabbed a buddy, took it down and put it back up the same day (that was all me because I knew it would sit there for weeks if not months if I didn't tell him it had to go back up the same day :)). That was 9 years ago and it's still in great shape all I have to do is stain it every other year.! Best free thing ever for us!
When giving things away, I usually use the St Vincent DePaul drop box at church or give it to someone I know will use it. We have also put things to the curb, like a drop down portable crib that you can no longer sell or give away. It was gone in 15 minutes. Most things that go to the curb around here are gone before you know it, but we only use that if it's truly something I wouldn't give away.
