Using Freecycle to Prepare for Your New Baby on a Budget

Buying necessary items for you new baby can be expensive, somewhere in the middle, or you can even get them for free! While you're out shopping at thrift stores and garage sales for your crib, baby clothes, and swings, you can also swing by someone's house in your neighborhood who is trying to get rid of a baby bathtub they no longer need if that person is a member of your local Freecycle Yahoo Group.

Shopping online for your new baby is another great way to get items that you need to prepare for your new baby's life. E-Bay, name brand coupons from the websites of large companies, Craigslist, etc. are good options to help you save money on getting items cheaply.

One more option is Freecycle. Freecycle is a nation-wide network of people that give away items to each other in local cities and regions. Someone can either offer or request an item. When you search for Freecycle online, you will sign up for your local area's Freecycle group so that you can connect with those closest to you who are giving away used baby equipment.

Freecycle operates a lot like Craigslist's free section, but I have found it to be a bit more reliable in terms of people picking up the items that they have told me they wanted which I offered. I believe this to be because Freecycle's group is smaller and more local than Craigslist. Freecycle is a member-only network (You only have to sign up on Freecycle's website), and there are not generally people from a town 50 miles away that have access to the postings.

In my local area, people are always giving and receiving items for babies and children on Freecycle. This network of exchange keeps items out of landfills, saves families on both ends time, hassle, and money, and extends the life of things that are no longer useful to a particular family for any number of reasons. Sign up for Freecycle for your baby, and see what else there may be offered in the postings that could be something special just for you!