See what I did there? Life Dropping? Instead of Link Drop – nevermind. Let’s just move on.

You might remember, folks, that your favorite internet dork got robbed. Sad, yes, but I’ve taken a few valuable life lessons from the whole ordeal, not the least of which is this: I’ve got a lot of stuff. Too much stuff, by my standards, and absolutely no desire to cram it all into my car whenever I bid adieu to Norman.

This leaves me in a dilemma, however. In a perfect world, I’d sell the lot of it, banking massive amounts of money and skipping off into the sunset. In the real world, however, I’m going to have to get creative. The amount of money I’d pull in for most of it wouldn’t really justify the time wasted trying to sell in the first place, and I’d be a complete fool just to throw it away whenever someone out there could probably make use of it.

Enter Freecycle, ladies and gentlemen. You can probably guess what it is.

Let’s focus on the first part of the word: free. Sure, it might sting a little to let go of your stuff for nary a dime in profit, but anyone with mountains of stuff they want to offload will probably agree that doing it for free is better than not doing it at all. Things like shoes and clothing might be better served for the Salvation Army or local thrift stores, but what about the random stuff? The big box of computer cables, for example, that’s been sitting under my desk for about two years?

Cue Freecycle. Nearly every city in America has its own branch, often in the form of a Yahoo! group (as in Norman’s case) where users can post messages detailing the stuff they’re giving away or the stuff they’d like to take in. You have to sign up for a Yahoo! id, unfortunately, but the process is free and relatively painless, and once accepted into the group you can start pitching your stuff to the masses.

I applied for the Norman group a day or two ago and was accepted pretty promptly, for what that’s worth. I haven’t posted any of the stuff I want to get rid of just yet, but a quick scan of the recent messages shows a pretty sizable community operating on the site, so I might not have too much difficulty finding takers for my items.

Fingers crossed, at least. I have a lot of stuff to offload, so here’s hoping Freecycle will work as advertised! Anyone have any other tips for getting rid of stuff as graduates make the transition to the adult kingdom?

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freecycle, graduation, maybe i can offer my roommates, recycle