Welcome! The Freecycle Network™ is made up of 4,583 groups with 5,698,000 members across the globe. It's a grassroots and entirely nonprofit movement of people who are giving (& getting) stuff for free in their own towns. It's all about reuse and keeping good stuff out of landfills. Each local group is moderated by a local volunteer (them's good people). Membership is free.

We always find ourselves drowning in junk at our house. Kids accumulate toys, clothes and other stuff at an astounding rate. Even when I get super motivated to de-clutter, sadly I'm often tossing out stuff that isn't completely broken or unusable. I just want it gone and my house clean!

I'm trying something different this round of cleaning - freecycle. Before I toss the items, I'm just tossing them in a box or bag and making a post on my local freecycle list about them. Since you aren't selling them, you don't need to do all the things to make the item look better online. Just post a few lines about the item, condition and where you are. If someone drops you an email saying they want it, you just set up a time or place to get it. I'm not fond of people in my house that I don't know so we just leave stuff on our porch.

So far we've given away Hayley's old duck bathroom items, some old games of hers, an old rug and tomorrow our sectional from the living room. Some of these things we were going to pay to have someone haul away! We saved money and gave someone else something with some use left plus we are keeping things out of landfills. Everyone wins!

While most of what I'm doing is moving junk from our house, I've posted my first note today about something Hayley asked for to play with - some bongos. Who knows if she'll really ever use them but I'm fine with getting her them if I'm getting it for free.

Of course, charity and goodwill are great options as well but freecycle gives you another option for used things, one with some reciprocal benefits!