Expand Your Charitable Giving with Freecycle

Personally, one of the things that I really enjoy is when I am able to give something or get something without having to really give much up. It sounds rather obvious, but I’d like to share a few examples to give you an idea of what I mean.

One site that I discovered not long ago through reading a post by a fellow personal finance blogger was freecycle.org. Freecycle is a series of sites/yahoo! groups that is devoted to helping people manage the stuff they have that they no longer want and/or need by providing a way to link people up.

If you’re not an ebay junkie and therefore don’t have the desire to sell something. Sometimes selling is just plain impractical because the item is so large or the shipping costs would outweigh the value of the item on arrival. But in the case of freecycle, you have the ability to give these items to people in your town who might need them

Going Green

From freecycle’s point of view, the main goal is to ensure that people are actually able to keep more things from ending up in the landfills, especially when they can be reused again. This is a noble idea, for certain. But the real interest for many people comes from the fact that they can get items for free that they might not be able to afford otherwise.

If you have the desire to clear out your closets, garage, basement, etc, freecycle might be a great way for you to do so, all without feeling like you are wasting money. Since giving something away to a person who needs exactly that item is often far better than donating it to a charity that may end up throwing it away.

Making it Personal

So far, I have donated two things to people through freecycle and I find it is a great way for me to feel good about giving since I actually see the people that the stuff is going to and I also have a sense that my giving is directly helping my local community. It is a great way to keep charity local and also a nice way to give to others, no matter what your income level is. Since almost everyone has something that they don’t need or no longer use anymore that could be donated.

Obviously, no matter what, donating to charity is a great idea and many people prefer more anonymous forms of charity like the salvation army or st. vincent de paul. And I find that those types of charities work much better for certain items like clothes. However, small electronics, books, magazines, paper, and craft supplies are items that seem to be more common on freecycle. This makes sense because these items are heavier and more expensive to ship. So consider the type of item that you are trying to get rid of, you might have just found a new way to put it to good use.