The other day, I posted a story about Goodwill. A reader complained about high prices at the local “thrift shop.” Many readers agreed.
A few days later, alert “06880” reader Libby Kole emailed me about a less expensive alternative.
In fact, it’s free.
There’s no physical location. Instead, you find “Buy Nothing” online.
The Westport Facebook group is part of a national movement. It helps people trade, share, give and get just about anything.
Kole cited one example. She picked up boxes from a woman who just moved here. In return, Kole posted a rocking chair. (She’ll give the boxes away too, when she’s done moving herself.)
Nothing is for sale. There is no bartering. It’s just free.
The national site for Buy Nothing Groups lists things that can be given. They include clothes, dinners, plants, rabbits, laundry detergent, antiques, bikes, canoes, kombucha, flowers, eggs and beds.
People offer services too: nursing or childcare. A resting place for a dying dog. An arborist checking on trees. Guitar lessons.
Users have requested over-the-counter medicines in the middle of the night. Books, rugs and stuffed animals for a 1st grade classroom. Blackberries for wine-making (the recipient then shared his wine with the entire community). A home, while an apartment is being renovated.
Though the Westport group is just getting started, it quickly zoomed past 250 members.
The list of offerings is not as clever as the national examples. But it is typically Westport.
There’s a Sub-Zero dual zone wine cooler (“worth 4K” — though it needs $1,300 worth of evaporators). A kids’ scooter. Size 6 Crocs (“rejected by my child”). Carry-on luggage. Lice shampoo.
The $4,000 wine cooler.
It’s all there for the taking.
What gives?!
(Click here for the “Buy Nothing Westport, CT” Facebook group.)
