Mom Knows Best

Useful information intended for college students and graduates starting out on their own, from daily living tips, to recipes, freebies, budgeting and much, much more.

Saturday, November 15, 2008

"Free" Is the Operative Word for College Students

Consider it your mantra. "Free" sounds and feels good.

I bet I'd be hard pressed to find a college student who isn't familiar with the website Craigslist. However, if somehow it has eluded you, be sure to check it out, and encourage your parents to do the same. Essentially, Craigslist is an enormous site for classifieds and forums. It has an extensive listing of such categories as jobs, internships, housing, as well as items for barter, for sale and for free (there's that word again!). According to the website, Craigslist is located in "more than 550 cities in over 50 countries". So go online, find your state, and narrow it to your region or county. The possibilities are endless on Craigslist.

There's another site that may be less familiar to some of you - - Freecycle. As the name implies, this site is truly free, with the added benefit of saving the environment by recycling, and thereby reducing items uselessly sent to the landfill. Once you join a group in your area, you are able to see what people are giving away. If an item interests you, you arrange to get it. It's that simple. As an example, when my son wanted yet another new instrument to add to his repertoire, we posted an ad on Freecycle. He quickly received offers for 3 guitars, and ultimately found a bass guitar with an amplifier that someone was willing to give to him....you got it, FREE! Similarly, I posted an ad in search of knitting needles and now have an enormous selection of different sized needles, with yarn remnants thrown in to sweeten the pot! You'll be amazed by what people are willing to part with. We're still on the lookout for a harp, and a banjo, and a ukelele, and a...........!

Conversely, it's a terrific way to give away items you may no longer be using. Recently, we cleaned out our garage - - no small feat! We donated countless items to charity. However, we had some items that were less appropriate for donating: old cans of paint, old tires, old Collegeboard SAT and AP books (you remember those! I bet you're smiling.), etc., with no obvious place to dispose of them, short of the landfill. A quick posting on Freecycle, and we received a bunch of responses from interested people. We left them at our mailbox to be picked up. Easy!

So, with a little ingenuity, and thinking outside the box, you may find just what you've been looking for, and it's FREE. Be a treehugger.

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