05 September 2011

Freecycle

I'm really English! I have much more stuff than I should. It seems to be quite an British thing; the BBC claims the UK has as many self-storage facilities as the rest of Europe added together. I don't have stuff in storage, but I do have too much: I already blogged about my attempts to get rid of some stuff, by both throwing away and selling on eBay. The latter was not such a success; you have to indicate what the postage will cost, and there's no way of knowing that until you know where you're mailing your things to. But then I heard of Freecycle.

Freecycle is a sort of local eBay for free. If you want something or want to get rid of something you post that, and when some match is made between a giver and a taker they arrange exchange, and Bob's you uncle. I tried it with a book, and it all worked out well. I may do more of this! The only problem with freecycle is that it's not just a message board. You get every single email of someone offering something, of someone wanting something, something having been claimed, and something having been received. Instead of cluttering you house it clutters your mailbox! One day I'll find an equilibrium in all this...

No comments: