There are a range of ways to find pre-loved clothes – scour the local charity shops, visit freecycle pages and marketplaces on the internet, download free second-hand clothing apps, ask other parents in your school WhatsApp group, find out if your school runs a swap shop or visit retailer’s second-hand shops online.
https://inews.co.uk/inews-lifestyle/money/how-save-money-buying-school-uniforms-experts-2503945
One such app that has made a significant impact in this sector is ‘Letgo’. This app allows users to buy and sell second-hand items, including furniture. By providing a platform for the exchange of used goods, Letgo is helping to reduce the amount of waste that ends up in landfills. Another app, ‘Freecycle’, operates on a similar concept but focuses on the donation of items rather than selling. Users can list items they no longer need, and others can claim them for free.
Freecycle Network: Freecycle is similar to Buy Nothing, in that it’s a place based program where you can sign up to give or receive free stuff in your community. One way that Freecycle is different from Buy Nothing is that you can form a “Friends Circle” with your local friends in addition to giving and receiving from other people in your town. You can sign up on their website.
https://environmentamerica.org/articles/tips-to-avoid-buying-new-stuff-to-save-money-and-the-planet/
Say you have an item you no longer want, but it’s too good to toss out. Garage sale? Way too busy. Donate it to a charitable group? Set it at the end of the driveway with a big sign that says FREE? Or give it away on the Freecycle Network.
Sites such as Freecycle and Facebook Marketplace have reported an enormous increase in users. One woman who recently got a gem from the latter is TikTok user Emery Land, 33, a property manager from Texas.
https://www.newsweek.com/thrifting-furniture-delights-internet-chairs-rich-people-1812220
The internet is awash in digital communities dedicated to the unconditional giving away of unwanted items —Craigslist and the Freecycle Network tops among them. But these folks found and stuck with a different space, one with growing traction in neighborhoods around the country and beloved for its sense of community, its members’ generosity and responsiveness.
A nonprofit organization, Freecycle has local groups all over the world where members can post items they want to give away or request items they need. Everything is free, with the goal of keeping usable items out of landfills.
It’s a feel-good site, in other words. And though items on offer can be hit or miss, if you live in a reasonably populated area, they’re often more hit than not.
Or check out sites like Nextdoor, Facebook Marketplace, Freecycle, and Gumtree to see what your neighbors are giving away for free that you can reuse.
Don’t be a victim. Never pay for delivery of a Freecycle item.
The incidence of scams is on the increase, on Freecycle and elsewhere. Here’s how you can identify a likely scam:
Any time you find a suspicious post, or are asked to pay for an item or delivery of an item, please use the “Report” button on the post detail page, or send a message to your town moderators. Please don’t become a victim of another delivery scam!
Thanks for helping keep scammers out of Freecycle!
Freecycle Network in 2003 when he couldn’t find a place to recycle a perfectly good bed. The website started as a small group of friends and has grown to over 10 million members in 5,000 online communities across 110 countries. Volunteers moderate the groups, and Beal estimates members kept more than 807 million pounds of used items out of landfills in the last year alone.
