(no subject)

[katallison]

Today's interesting discovery: If you have some item you just want to get the hell RID of, and you (a) are under the gun on time, or (b) feel the inconvenience of figuring out a price for it, dealing with buyers' suspiciousness, etc., outweighs any piddly gain you could make by a sale -- then boy HOWDY, is the "Free" category on Craigslist ever a fast way to get rid of stuff. I mean, like, whole orders of magnitude more volume and speed of response.

I've posted four things on there yesterday and today, and in each case, I had multiple responses literally within five minutes of the post going live. I can only imagine there are people who have a feed set up for that category and watch it like a hawk. Now, in each case these were things of some (limited) value that I probably could have gotten some (piddly) money for if I'd been willing to go through the aggravation, but wow, is it ever worth it to just get this stuff gone, fast. And there's a nice sense of cleanness about giving stuff away, I find, not having to worry about whether I'm asking too much or too little, not getting all over-torqued about $20-30 one way or the other (and I know how lucky I am to be currently in enough financial comfort that $20-30 one way or the other is less important than personal convenience. That's a luxury, I know.)

So -- funky old file cabinet, beat-up ancient desk chair, beat-up ancient dining chairs, and the goddamned air conditioner that never worked right, all are gone and out of my life, YAY.

Comments

[heresluck]

Yay, getting rid of stuff!

::eggs you on::

[katallison.livejournal.com]

Wheee!

Oh, and hey, are you having rain there? It is raining here, a lovely cool steady fresh-smelling rain which promises to go on all day, and it it *glorious.*

[kitestringer.livejournal.com]

Hmm...a friend of mine suggested that I post a broken computer monitor I want to get rid of in the "free" category; I wonder whether someone would actually take it. I can't get over feeling weird about offering something that doesn't even *work*, but there might be people out there who'd want to salvage it for parts, right? Maybe?

Also, congratulations on successfully getting rid of stuff! \o/

[heresluck]

We are having rain, yes, and the temperature has dropped wonderfully; I was awakened this morning by four cats (two very large, two very small) using me as a hot-water bottle. Clearly I should plan to spend the day weeding much more often! *g*

[qe2.livejournal.com]

"Free" is a shopaholic's verbal aphrodisiac.

Yay for getting rid of stuff. (And yay as well for being in a lifeplace in which $20-30 one way or another matters less than it used to. *cheers you on*)

[katallison.livejournal.com]

I certainly think it's worth a try; my lord, compared to some things I've seen offered on the Free list that seems very desirable. The other thing you could try is to see if there's a Freecycle mailing list in your community. Freecycle seems to accommodate *any* kinds of items.

My approach, BTW, has been scrupulous honesty about the condition of whatever I'm offering (accompanied by photos if possible). Then I figure that since it's free people can't really get upset if it's not working; all they're out is the time/gas to come pick it up.

[katallison.livejournal.com]

Honestly, I feel so much lighter and freer with all this stuff out of the house, I would almost have been willing to *pay* people to take it away.

(And I am in vast admiration of the to-do list you posted--good lord, woman, you're a HERO.) (Whereas I am clearly too lazy to even leave a separate comment in your LJ. *is shamed*)

[namastenancy.livejournal.com]

Hooray for de-cluttering your life, getting rid of old things, ways and habbits and yay! for you moving to the West Coast. The times, they sure are changing.

[tracy-rowan.livejournal.com]

I found that out at my garage sale! A $50 ad in print media did nothing but a free posting on Craig's list accounted for some substantial sales on Sunday even though I posted it as an afterthought late Saturday. Sell or giveaway, Craigslist is just about the best resource I can think of.

[tracy-rowan.livejournal.com]

There will always be someone willing to invest the time to either try to fix it or salvage the parts. If not Craigslist then Chicago Freecycle.

[renenet.livejournal.com]

Excellent! I have also used freecycle to do the give-away thing. I love it!

[katallison.livejournal.com]

De-cluttering is the GREATEST! Now all I need is to not ever again fall back into my lazy packrat ways. (Well, that isn't likely to be a problem, actually, since all I'm probably going to be able to afford in Seattle will be a 500 sf studio and I won't have ROOM to let stuff collect...)

[katallison.livejournal.com]

It's been really a good experience overall; I've been pleasantly surprised by how polite and non-crazy the people I've dealt with have been. (Not all of them know how to *spell*, mind you, but that is a relatively minor matter...)

[katallison.livejournal.com]

Giving stuff away FTW! \o/

[qe2.livejournal.com]

(Whereas I am clearly too lazy to even leave a separate comment in your LJ. *is shamed*)

As well you should be. Do please realize that I form my friendships based primarily on whether people comment in my LJ, and those who cannot be arsed to do so are quickly defriended online and IRL both.

(/bullshit)

(*squidges you omg and collapses in tired heap*)

also:

[qe2.livejournal.com]

good lord, woman, you're a HERO

Uh, no. That title belongs to the woman who is imminently leaving her heart-home and relocating to the West Coast. I'm just neurotic enough to feel like I have to earn my weekend by working for most of it. Go fig.