Buy nothing groups

[sisterofbloomerjunior]

I figured this deserved a separate entry.

How have other unclutterers’ (sic?) experiences been with Buy Nothing groups, especially if you’ve had people at your house picking stuff up? My house is next door to a school, so we’ve figured it’s one of the reasons we’ve never had a decent garage sale.

Comments

[zenigotchas]

Never done it myself but my sibs swear by them, one of them was able to decorate her home by outsourcing a good chunk of her stuff from Buy Nothing (she was looking for a lot of older looking/more classic/rustic furniture and many people in her area were eager to get rid of that stuff), though not EVERYTHING was at its best quality and so you might have to fix them up whatever you get yourself.

[lilysea]

I've given stuff away on Buy Nothing (with no face to face contact, I agree a time and then leave stuff in front of my front door)

it mostly goes ok

the biggest hassle is people who don't bother to show up,

which happens between 10% and 30% of the time

[shreena]

We use both Olio and Freecycle.

There are a certain number of time wasters but for the most part it's good

I usually agree a rough time and then leave the thing in a bag on the front door step or somewhere like that

However, I do find they can sometimes be counter productive for decluttering because of how lengthy the process of responding to messages, finding a time etc can be. And then if no one wants it, it sort of sits there for a while or the kids decide actually they do still play with it..

So I do a mix of this and physically taking to a charity shop