Craigslist.com is the best internet site too mooch off of since slice bread. Don’t have enough money for a hair cut, dye or perm? Then go on the “Free” section of Craigslist where you can be a ‘head model’ – an armature beautician experiment for a grade. Want a free tattoo? Go on Craigslist. There are many tattoo artists want to try a new style of art or build up their portfolio for their businesses. Looking for a (used) leather couch, table, and baby crap? It’s on Craigslist. It’s amazing what you can find on craigslist when looking for second hand crap. Just to assure you that people just don’t throw or give away their things so easily. Why waste money on something that you’re never going to need in the end? Rich people do it everyday.

Around the spring and fall time is when you find really good stuff on Craigslist that students HAVE to give away because they are leaving their dorms to something greater, or a student that moved in to that dorm is throwing the other student’s stuff out in the case of “that person is no longer there anymore.” Foreign students have to go back from whence they came from because their visas expired, or to look for greater pastures, whatever the cause may be students around spring and fall throw used but very good shit out meaning better stuff on the free portion on Craigslist or Freecycle.com. Also people move, clean out closets, or a house has been foreclosed, or someone bought too much of a good thing and just don’t want to throw whatever it is away. All in all the way I see it, it’s okay to mooch off of Craigslist because of other people situations or if a student needs a grade for that day.

If you don’t want to feel like a total mooch then there is always the bater section of Craigslist. That’s where you trade whatever you have for something else. If you have an expensive 400.00 name brand hand bag, then you can trade it for a ipod, ipod nano, or laptop. Have a car you want to trade for? Or have a hairdresser give hair extensions in return for a website for her salon. Or pay off someone’s six year library dept for a Bluetooth. One way or another it’s a free way of getting what you want without feeling like a total mooch by exchanging services or material instead of paying with money. 

The best advice I can give when you found the freebie on Craigslist and you have to meet that person to pick up that freebie is;

1.      Treat EVERY meet like a blind date. You meet that person in a public area, and pick up that item. Call or e-mail the person first before you go anywhere and if it’s a curb alert – then what you want is on the street.

2.       And if that person flakes out on you on giving you that freebie, screw it. If you don’t have, you don’t need it now. I do admit, there are people who have flaked out on me when I expected to pick up a freebie. It happens.

3.      As for the free hair cut and tattoos the best advice is – know what you want, so you don’t have become someone’s own personal experiment for a grade.

Other than that, that’s it. Mooching off of Craigslist isn’t bad really. It’s really saving money on receiving things that people really don’t want or have to give away because of circumstances. It happens. I mean if you can find a really bad, cheap date on this ridiculous site then might as well you find a pair of free worn in jeans if you have little or no money.

And if you can’t deal with those free pair of jeans that you got off Craigslist then give it to the local Goodwill for a tax deduction.

Whatever helps.

By: Rosita M. Adams

Rosita M. Adams
age – 31 
born on Valentines Day in 1979. YEAH!!
A fiction writer who is working on a novel for over a year and don’t
know when it’s ever going to end. I’m a freelance illustrator who is
working on the whole writing bit.
 
See my website
http://panamaadams.blogspot.com/