Oh how I Love FreeCycle!

Have you heard of FreeCycle yet? Well if you haven't, you are missing out on a lot. Well that depends on where you live. I have been in many freecycle groups and some are better than others, but suffice it to say if you live in a more populated and affluent neighborhood, freecycle can be an amazing source for free and nice items. When I lived in Maine, I found that in my somewhat more rural area more people had wants than things to give away, but here in Maryland pretty much every group I belong to is active. What's better than free stuff?

How does freecycle work you ask? You can join a few groups in your area by just searching the internet for ''freecycle'' and ''your town name''. Freecycle likes it if you only join a few groups, so everyone has a fair chance at the free stuff and once you join a group you also have to be able to list some of your own possessions on freecycle as well. Its a give and take program. You can then sign up to get emails in a weekly or daily digest or by individual post. If you choose individual emails you will have a better chance at catching things when they are listed vs. the daily or weekly digest where some postings on them may already be expired. However, if you choose individual emails, you do get a lot of emails, so I like to set-up a separate folder for my freecycle emails to go to, so they don't clutter my inbox (where I get more important emails). Some individuals I might say like to post a lot, especially if they are doing a ''spring cleaning'', just FYI.

You can then start responding to emails for items and work out with the owners of said items a pick-up process. Many of the items will be used, broken, old, yard sale type items, but depending on your area can be fairly new items in good working condition that are no longer needed once the item has been upgraded, like pcs, printers, etc. People will even post pictures or good enough detailed descriptions (for search purposes) that you can see what your getting before you respond to the ads. You never know what amazing things you will find on freecycle. However, as always for a few free items that you take, you need to list some, too, even if its cheesy stuff like Sunday paper coupons or scrap computer paper.

You can also ask for items ''wanted''. I did this once so far. I was moving and needed a new cat carrier, so I put the call out and I got a decent one from a user in my Greenbelt/College Park Group. I also belong to a Catonsville group with my father, so between the two groups I see a lot of postings. Although right now its more like I post to Catonsville and pick up from GB/CP.

Here are a list of items that I claimed from freecycle so far.

 This HP printer which works fine, but will need new cartridges soon.







This external hard drive, desktop version. Has lots of space on and works great. Got this one right after my old portable HD was stolen. It's amazing how things work out like that.

• Sewing patterns
• Aloe vera gel- bottle, completely full, used only once. (I work outdoors, so I use this stuff all the time on bug bites, sunburn, dry winter skin, etc. I love it.)
• Frying pans and pots
• Glass canning Jars
• Cat carrier
• Cat kitty litter mat (Thanks to my friend Jane and Freecycle, but too bad she had to give up her cat because of allergies)
• Dog rawhide bones (which were too big for our little guy, but since they were free no big deal)
• An almost full bag of Blue Buffalo dog food, which was left behind by a gentleman's previous roommate when he moved out. This dog food is expensive, so this was an amazing find.
• A couple of the older box TV sets, which work fine.
• An aquarium magnetic glass cleaner. It is a magnet of course, of which one side is flat and felt covered, goes on the outside and the other side has a gritty surface and goes on the inside. You move it back and forth to clean the glass on the aquarium.
• A full aquarium starter kit with two aquariums a regular 10 gal and an octagonal, an aquarium net, fish food and various water treatment and fish health chemicals.

That's the list up until now, but that's a lot of nice stuff. Who knows what you will find in your local freecycle group? Join a group and start saving lots of money, landfill space and our environment's precious resources (by giving old items new life with someone else). Who knows what one man considers trash, another might consider treasure.