4 Ways to Get Free Furniture
Gente gather round, I want to tell you a little secret about my home. Shhh… Are you ready?
Okay, here goes: A large percentage of the furniture we have, we got for FREE. Yup, as in we paid no dinero for it and we love those pieces just as much (and sometimes maybe more) than the pieces we did pay hard earned money for.
So how exactly can you too score free furniture without going dumpster diving? Let me tell you how we’ve done it.
1. Craigslist’s “Barter” or “Free” section.
Under the “For Sale” section on Craigslist.org there are sub-sections called “Barter” and “Free” where—yup, you guessed it—you can barter for items or get items totally free. The thing is that free goes really fast so you need to stay on top of these sections. For example, I’m in the market for some free chairs and I just went on and saw that 18 minutes ago someone posted a cute black chair for free if you can pick it up today. I just sent an email asking for it so cross your fingers for me.
Update: I got the chair!
2. Freecycle.org where everything is free.
Freecyle.org is a network with groups all over the world where people are giving their stuff away for nada. Why? Because they would rather give it to someone for free than see it end up as garbage. Again, free goes fast so if you see something you like listed, act quick!
3. Heavy trash pick up day.
Does your area have a heavy trash pick up day? You know a day when people put out big items to be picked up by their local trash collectors. This is a great time to grab a vehicle, go cruisin’ and turn someone else’s trash into your treasure.
4. Ask the Universe.
Okay, I know this one sounds totally hokey and New Age-y, but what I mean by it is put your needs and desires out there for others to hear via your social circle. Need a sofa or a table or an armoire? Let your friends and family know that if they know of anyone who is getting rid of one of those items you are open to adopting. Some folks want to get rid of stuff more than they want to make a buck and you’re actually doing them a favor by taking it off their hands.
We have several beautiful items of furniture that came our way via a friend who was going through a divorce and moving out of the city. The pieces are beautiful, but he didn’t want to start his “new” life with them. We didn’t ask him to give us the furniture, we just happened to be around talking to him about what he was going through and he asked us if we wanted any of the furniture.
Bonus tip: If you want to be the kind of person that scores things for free in life then you need to be the kind of person who gives things away for free, too, because it’s a known fact of the Universe that what goes around comes around.
Have you ever gotten free furniture?
Image via [email protected]/Flickr and ShareImage.
