Here's another REALLYPOOR idea : the 'for free' listing on Craigslist! Most people know about Craigslist by now: we look for local jobs, shop for rentals, houses etc , find bicycles, RVs and anything else imaginable, locally or nationally on Craigslist. What many may overlook though, is that CRAIGSLIST has a 'for free' category in every city.
When I first looked into the 'for free' category I expected mostly a lot of junk other people did not what to pay to have hauled away. Surprisingly though, while there is plenty of stuff that polite people would not even photograph or post, there are many many varied offerings by nice people in nice places that are entirely worth the war. One may even furnish eventually an entire house FOR FREE by keeping a close watch on the free listings on Craigslist.
For example, I just went to FREE STUFF on CL and the first listing is a free ceiling fan:
You could pay 50 to 100 dollars for a ceiling fan with lights! Or how about this 'curb alert':
Drive by this fellow's curb, and you can have a little table and a lawnmower: it might work perfectly, or might be repairable, or need nothing more than a spark plug, but in any event, next to the cheapest at about 200 dollars, its a great deal even if it only lasts a year. Some REALLYPOOR people actually can do things like small machine repair, which makes this a great deal.
One of my favorite things about FREE STUFF is that no child should ever have to go without a piano again. Take a look at these offered for free in the Minneapolis St. Paul area:
When I first looked into the 'for free' category I expected mostly a lot of junk other people did not what to pay to have hauled away. Surprisingly though, while there is plenty of stuff that polite people would not even photograph or post, there are many many varied offerings by nice people in nice places that are entirely worth the war. One may even furnish eventually an entire house FOR FREE by keeping a close watch on the free listings on Craigslist.
For example, I just went to FREE STUFF on CL and the first listing is a free ceiling fan:
You could pay 50 to 100 dollars for a ceiling fan with lights! Or how about this 'curb alert':
One of my favorite things about FREE STUFF is that no child should ever have to go without a piano again. Take a look at these offered for free in the Minneapolis St. Paul area:
Some are actually quite nice, and some are a really poor nice idea.
How about a sofa? Often you can find an extremely nice sofa, well cared for, that only has a few minor flaws: the owner may be doing nothing more than updating a style, or moving and starting over, and you benefit, for the mere cost of getting the thing to your house or apartment somehow. Here's an example of a nice offering:
Though occasionally they also have others that are better dismissed:
But it depends on the person: being poor does not mean being without skills: if you have upholstery skills, this would be acceptable, or maybe you know how to refurbish leather : I don't! The point is, you can fnd everything, from the most expensive hardly used iterms in all categories all the way to things that even poor people think would be better as firewood or rag content!
No birthday present for a child? How about a used bike?
Or a play kitchen?
The above would take about ten minutes of elbow grease to clean up, and any little girl up to about 7 or 8 would find it neat-o. In the background, this offer included a free high chair which leads to another category of baby supplies:
One of the things I discovered, was a plethora of office supplies, though you have to watch for them: one office, closing down, was offering a hundred or so ring binders for organization, which are ten dollars a piece at stores like WalMart: that's a thousand dollars worth of slightly used binders for free!
A free desk ( I thought this had to be on the sale portion:
more to follow....
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