F is for Freecycle

However much you fight against becoming a neurotic parent – with a home that breeds pint-sized equipment as fast as sick stains appear on the sofa – you plunge into a world that requires an inordinate amount of stuff for remarkably short periods of time. This leads to the constant problem of where to store it, which probably explains why so many transactions on Freecycle involve baby gear. The online recycling forum is simply the best place to discover that someone in your area has a load of unwanted bits and pieces that will save you a fortune (freecycle.org).

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Vince Cable, The Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, visited Wedmore at the weekend with Burnham-On-Sea’s MP Tessa Munt.

Mr Cable picked up a few freebies at a Freecycle event in Wedmore alongside his parliamentary private secretary.

At the Freecycle event, organised by the village green group, he took away a set of bathroom scales for his London home.

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Clothes: a child’s only requirement is to be warm and dry. We would use only swaps from friends or bundles from Freecycle, the website that matches people who have things they don’t want with people who can use them. Toys: ditto. Food: out with the kiddy rice cakes, little cheeses and special squashes. He would just eat his share of the three meals a day that we cook for ourselves. Cloth nappies (given away via “swap or sell” pages on Facebook); kitchen haircuts; activities concocted at home instead of at soft-play centres. We could go a whole year without engaging in any kiddy consumerism, barring essential items such as medicines. Johnny wouldn’t even notice.

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