Before you buy something you’ll use briefly or your kids will outgrow, post an ask in your local Buy Nothing group, where everything is free. One specific ask for furniture, baby gear, tools, or outgrown clothes can save you the full retail price.
The things you’d use for a few months are the same things your neighbors have stopped using: the bouncer a baby outgrew and the drill someone bought for one shelf. Buying one new means paying for years of use you won’t get.
The Buy Nothing Project runs its groups on Facebook and in its own app, and it says it has more than 14 million members in more than 50 countries. Its rules ban buying, selling, trading, and bartering, so every item is a gift. You also don’t have to wait for the thing you need to appear. Members post asks for specific items right alongside the giveaways.
Ask for things you’d otherwise buy new and use briefly, such as outgrown kids’ clothes and toys, moving boxes, furniture, a tool for a single job, and baby gear.
Write the ask so a neighbor can say yes quickly. Name the item, the size or age range, and the date you need it by, and offer to pick up whenever it suits the giver. Then give things away yourself, since the groups run on generosity going both ways.
Check baby gear before anyone uses it. Look up a crib, stroller, or high chair by brand and model in the Consumer Product Safety Commission’s recall database at CPSC.gov. Turn down a drop-side crib, too. Federal rules have barred making or selling the traditional kind since June 2011. Pass on a used car seat unless you know its full history. Safe Kids Worldwide says to use one only if it’s never been in a crash, hasn’t been recalled, and isn’t past its expiration date.
Where there’s no active group, try the free section of Craigslist or Freecycle, a nonprofit giveaway network organized by town.
Make the ask your first move for anything you’d use for less than a year, and give the group a few days before you pay retail.
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