Amongst Other Things

In my last post I mentioned an online group called Free*Cycle that I joined a little over a year ago. Since I have had a lot of fun recycling community junk, I thought it would be fun to write about a few things that I have acquired as well as a few things I have let go of.



Some of the things I have offered range from the potty seat (see my last post), to lots of clothes, a broken microwave, shoes, and a wooden rocking chair that had fallen apart and a pile of lattice.



You wouldn't believe the stuff people are so excited about getting.



As for the received items, I must say that the washing machine takes the cake. However, I now have a deep freezer, a set of China dishes, a chandelier and a lawn mower that I gave tomy nephew. The stuff is totally FREE. You just have to pick it up.



The washing machine turned out to be the real steal though. I didn't have one because the town house where I lived didn't have the hook-ups for one. Now that we were moving into a house I figured I should at least try my luck and request one. I wasn't sure what would happen, but hey, you never know. Right? It made since that some lucky person would get a new set for Christmas and I would get their old one. That's exactly what happened too. Some Lady who had 5 kids got a new front loader and I was just in time to take the old one off her hands. It was a large capacity Maytag. Not new by any means, but I was never so excited to do laundry in my own house. The Machine was great. Never any problems.



I had been using the machine for about 6 months and planned to use it till it quit. Until the day I was at Lowe's, looking for inspiration of some sort. As I was wondering around the store, I happened upon the clearance appliances. Out of nowhere, someone came up to me as I was looking and said that the prices are always negotiable if I was interested in anything.



Not sure where the boldness came from when I offered $50.00 for the Whirlpool I was looking at. What was there to loose? I wasn't in the need. I was so shocked when my offer was excepted that I actually said "whoa, that was too easy, how bout $45.00?". When he said okay again, I kinda freaked out a bit.



The thought of a new machine for $45.00 was almost too good to be true, so I asked him why it was there and what happens if I get it home and it doesn't work.



Turns out that all appliances sold on the floor, come with a one year warranty The reason it was there at all was because it was dropped on delivery... Lucky me!



I came home, called a friend of mine, sold her my "free washer" for $30.00 and am the proud owner of my first new washer. Originally, it was priced over $400.00. In the end... It cost me a whopping $15.00. Last I heard, the "old" machine is still working too.