A Month Of Savings – 07/11/2008
I always thought that if you can get something for free, the only better deal than that is the one where you get paid to take something of value away. Well, I didn’t get paid, but I did strike gold today on Freecycle.
I am a member of the Freecycle group in St. Louis, MO. I was watching the posts today, and a post entitled “OFFER: Power lawn mower, 63130″. When I contacted the person, they told me “Yard Machine power mower with 4 horse power engine, about 8 years old. Won’t start. Needs work.” I decided to take it because I was the first person to respond, I know someone who works on mowers, and I need a mower.
When I got it, it looked like it had been kept up. On the way home, I purchased an air filter, a spark plug, a blade sharpener attachment for my drill, and some 30 weight oil. I started working on it at 5:34pm. By 5:57pm, I was done and it started on the first pull. Check out the video:
A new mower like this would normally run around $150. A used one in good condition would, by my guess, be about $60-$80. The mower was free and I spent $15.70 (w/tax) on the tune-up parts. My net gain was between $44.30-$64.30.
I could turn around and sell the mower for $80, but I need one so I’m keeping it. This experience has made me think that I could probably do this again and get another mower to sell.
If you enjoyed this post, please make sure you register to receive these posts via email. You can also follow me on Twitter, link to me on LinkedIn, or visit my other blog, at www.johnasimpson.com.
© Copyright 2009, John A. Simpson. All Rights Reserved.
Thanks for such an important articles about shopping. This is a very needed info about shopping sites.
Check out http://www.freecycle.org.
The mower is still running. It even saved me money on yard waste removal because it did not come with a bag. Since I was not collecting the yard waste, I canceled the service.