Must-Know Monday: Freecycle

Happy Monday!! Here we are again! I hope everyone had a super Easter :)

As promised, here I am in my pregnant glory, Alissa:

It was really, really chilly, so I had the patience to take about three photos and had to run back inside to defrost, so this is all you get. Sorry! :)

Now to the purpose of this post: Freecycle.

I've mentioned it a few times on this blog and gotten a few questions about it, so I thought I'd clear the air on what it is and why it's so flipping great.

We all know (and love) Craigslist for great deals on anything from rocking horses to pool accessories to lawn furniture, but the catch with Craigslist is you have to pay for the items you want (most of the time).

Freecycle.org is a fabulous tool through Yahoo where members of your community get together and give things away.

Yea, you read that correctly. Absolutely everything on Freecycle is free. 100%. As in....you don't have to pay for it, barter for it or save up for it. It's just free.

The catch is you have to sign up and be approved by a moderator and there are a few rules in place to make sure no one is posting yucky, creepy things. But, once you're approved and swear you won't try to give away icky, inappropriate things you simply post one thing to give away then you're free to post things you're looking for!

People commonly give away very large items that they would need to pay to have removed anyway, so there are lots of patio sets, refrigerators, swingsets and blow up pools.

We lucked out on Freecycle when we were moving because we were able to post the things we didn't want to take with us, plus the random items we found in our new home. The goal is to keep as many things OUT of landfills as possible.

Moving boxes are another common item circulating on Freecycle which came in handy for our move. We found a mountain of them on the website at a home blocks from our condo, then reposted all of the boxes when we were finished with them so another family could utilize them. The cycle keeps repeating itself and all of these items get used again and again instead of heading to the garbage mill!

This spring I've already found a baby pool for our spoiled doggie Princess to enjoy all summer long, it just needs a little elbow grease to clean the bottom and it's good as new!

How do you keep things out of the trash and give them new life?