My Personal Freecycle

As I approach the last few weeks of pregnancy (and by “few” I mean I’m almost in the single-digit weekly countdown), I’ve made an art of organizing, de-cluttering, and purging. While doing so, I realized I had quite a bit of stuff I was no longer using, but was still in good shape… quite  a bit, but not enough to justify the annoyance of having a garage sale.

Before loading my trunk and delivering the items to Goodwill, I had an ingenious idea: post them on facebook! As of today, I have 656 friends on facebook. My assumption was that some of those people might actually want the stuff I was about to get rid of. And my assumption was correct! About half the stuff, which was all posted as free, was claimed within minutes!

It’s kind of like craigslist, but it’s free. And it’s kind of like freecycle, except you know where it’s been (generally speaking, I hope my friends don’t think I’m nasty).

It feels good to know that a friend had a need, and I met that need at no cost to them. It feels even better to do this frequently. So I now have an album on facebook entitled “my personal freecycle” and I post things as I find them. Some of the stuff sits for a couple weeks, but other stuff is claimed immediately. I love it!

And then I had another idea. What if all my facebook friends did the same thing? Think about it. If 600 facebook friends posted 10 things they no longer needed, I’d have access to a “store” of 6,000 free items! For example, right now I’d like to get a play kitchen set (Little Tikes, Step 2, etc), complete with play dishes, pots, pans, and food. Do I want to spend $200-300 for a new set? No. Do any of my friends have the exact thing I’m looking for, but their kids have outgrown it? I’m sure! Imagine the possibilities! We could all be blessing each other, with little effort. Not to mention the added benefit of de-cluttering our own homes.

Try it out, and encourage your friends to do the same. Then let me know what you think of the idea.