Craig's List

Last November we received a gift certificate in the mail from our realtors office. We had won it as a result of a drawing they had at a customer recognition evening (ironic given we were not happy with our realtor). Anyway, it was for $200 worth of professional organization services. Today I finally called about redeeming it, but it turns out that they only provide services in 4-hour blocks at $85 per hour, which means I'd have to shell out an additional $140 to make use of the $200 gift certificate. I might find this worthwhile if I actually needed help getting organized, but since I don't, I just asked if it was transferable and they said sure. So I posted an ad on Craig's List and explained the deal and offered to mail it to anyone who wanted it. I figured no one was interested because I didn't get any emails about it. Turns out all the emails when to junk mail. I got about 10 responses and all of them appear to be just normal people... no one trying to scam. I also got a messages from Craig's List stating that my ad was flagged as spam, which is a load of crap, but oh well. Anyway, even though I have done almost nothing here, I feel pretty good about the fact that someone will get some much needed organization help. All I have to do is mail it to her.

I also learned that if I were a poor college student, Craig's List is the place to go to get free stuff. There were free refrigerators, TVs, furniture...everything. And that was all just today. I find it refreshing that one can get so much free stuff if you're down on your luck (though you would have to have transportation and loading help to get much of it).