Freecycling

As I mentioned yesterday, our new washer and dryer are being delivered today. I hated to think of our old washer just being tossed in a landfill somewhere, since most likely it's fixable. We just weren't willing to spend the money on it ourselves, given its previous track record. So I found a St. Louis "freecycle" group. They're a email group on Yahoo (freecycle-stl) where people offer or request stuff for free--no selling or trading. It's kind of like how my mother-in-law appears in town with a trunk full of things they're never going to use again, but that she hates to throw away (like a little handpainted mirror with a mouse and a piece of cheese on it...it has sentimental value to her, so now it's ours....). Speaking of which, we probably shouldn't tell her about the site...she'd drive FIL nuts with the free stuff she'd collect...

So, yesterday about 10am I signed up with the Yahoo group and was able to post my offer of a free, broken washer around noon. By 4pm, I had a taker. The guy came and picked it up last night. I guess he was a little disappointed that the controls are on top instead of on the front, but otherwise quite happy to take the washer off our hands. He appears to be the handy sort, and from the sound of his conversation, likes both projects and good deals (something about buying a foreclosed house and all the fixing up he's working on). In other words, it was a perfect match. He can get some use from our washer (and might be up to handling the bi-annual floods and failures that it seems to bring), and we got it removed from our laundry room in time to do some tidying before the new stuff arrives.

I might just be taking more advantage of the freecycle group. I'm not quite the garage-sale shopper/bargain hunter that I'd have to be to take a lot of the items that are up for grabs, but we might have a few things around the house to offer up (including a few thanks to my MIL) :) And, we'd know they'll get a good home that way.