Helpful Mom

Anyone who knows me knows that I am a bargain shopper.  I love garage sales, thrift stores, consignment shops, hand me downs, and those back of the store clearance end caps.  My favorite is I actually had a coupon for a garage sale once!  No joke!  I have actually turned this “addiction” into a thriving home business buying and reselling online, a great after hours job to feed that need for something un-child related.

So when a friend from MOPS mentioned Freecycle I was intrigued, other people’s old junk for FREE!  Where do I sign up?  It’s a Yahoo group that you have to apply to join.  Basically it is focused on keeping stuff out of landfills so if you have something you want to get rid of but it could be reused, fixed, repurposed, and want to avoid throwing it out you can offer it through your local areas group and it will get added to the list and emailed to the members, who in turn can reply to the listing and request it.  You pick someone and arrange a time for them to pick it up from you.  And in turn when someone else lists something you can request it, you may or may not receive it.  But if you do it’s great because it’s free, you just have to pick it up.  We have received some great things-a single jogger stroller, kids clothes, boots, shoes, books, toys.  A week ago I received a bag of stuff that included brand new sealed kids toothpaste, pullups, toy storage nets, and a bunch of toys that thrilled my girls.

And it works to get stuff out of the house too.  You know that clutter us moms are always trying to get rid of.  Or that thing that is missing a piece is exactly what someone else is looking for cause they are missing the other parts.  We tore out an old slate floor a few years ago and we were able to have people come take away all of the old slate to be repurposed for their garden walkway, and the old wood flooring was also taken away to be used to make boxes and for a youth group bonfire.  And when we redid our bathroom all the tiles were taken to use in craft projects, the shower doors found a new home, and so did the old sink and vanity mirror.  It felt great to keep those things out of the trash and know that we can benefit too.