Free Noodles!

No, sorry – I'm not giving away a coupon for a free lunch here...

What I wanted to share was that last night I used my new (free) membership to our local FreeCycle group to score some free pool “noodles”!

(Our noodles, however, did not come with a little boy as pictured here. 

Thank god, because I have no idea where I'd store one of those.)

FreeCycle is like Craigslist but it’s only for giving away completely free stuff. No bartering, no strings attached – just straight up FREE. It’s not first-come, first-served because that causes people to waste time and gas by traveling somewhere to pick up an item that may no longer still be there. After joining your local FreeCycle group, you either place ads for stuff that you want to get rid of (for free) or respond to ads that others have posted.

From the FreeCycle website: “By giving freely with no strings attached, members of The Freecycle Network help instill a sense of generosity of spirit as they strengthen local community ties and promote environmental sustainability and reuse.”

So in the spirit of keeping things out of landfills and saving money at the same time, I responded to someone’s ad for pool noodles and some small boogie boards. He put them out on his porch for me and I picked them up last night.

I have to say that it was a bit strange to just pull into someone’s driveway, walk up to their house, take stuff off of their porch and then drive away! But kind of awesome!

And the benefit to being part of a FreeCycle group that’s specific to my section of town is that I'll never have to drive very far to pick up my free goodies. (Maybe not quite so true in the more rural areas of the country, but here in the DC area there are tons of neighborhood-specific FreeCycle groups.)

Want to find one near you? Go to FreeCycle.org and search for one where you live!