Have you heard of a "Buy Nothing" group on Facebook? It was new to me when I moved to Boise and a friend encouraged me to look for "my" group. My family and I have greatly benefited from this group so I thought I'd share it with you!
The Buy Nothing Project was started in 2013 with the "mission to build community connecting people through hyperlocal gifting and reducing our impact on the environment." In each group, members can GIVE items or services, ASK for things they could use or post a GRATITUDE POST to show appreciation and thanks. That's it. You don't have to be "in need" to ask for something and there are no strings attached when you give something away.
According to their website there are 5.33 million Buy Nothing community members across the globe! Whoa. My local Facebook group has over 730 members and people are actively posting items they're looking for or looking to give away every single day. Each community Facebook group is divided up by neighborhoods so everyone in the group is nearby.
It's been a fun way to get to know my neighbors (hey Brianna - I know you're reading this!), get "rid" of things we don't need or fulfill people's needs and get some awesome things too! We've given or received some awesome things - toys, food, clothing, kitchen items, home decor, yard tools, cleaning supplies and more! It's been so fun!
Wanna know the craziest thing I ended up getting from my group? Okay so not DIRECTLY through the group but still...
When we moved into our new home in July, I posted our moving boxes in the group and someone named Jen came to get them. As we loaded up her car with the boxes we chatted a bit about how she was moving to a new home with a larger yard because she's a dog breeder and needed more space. I told her that my kids (and husband) had been asking to get a dog for ever. She sent me the link to her website and I went on to look around. She just happened to be doing a fundraiser for a local charity by doing a giveaway where for $100 you could enter to win the third pick of her most recent litter of goldendoodle puppies. Usually those suckers go for thousands of dollars and I just felt like we should go for it and enter! We love non-profits so if we didn't win then it still felt like a good use of money and if we did win then we got one heck of a deal! But to be honest, I had a feeling in my bones that we were gonna win that puppy the second I saw the giveaway! And sure enough... we did! This is how our sweet boy Scout came into our life. Isn't that wild? It was obviously a little shocking but now we can't imagine life without him! I actually just gave away some of his extra puppy training pads and dog bowls on the group today!
I can't promise you'll end up with a furry friend like we did but I can guarantee that you'll build up your neighborhood community and get a lot of joy out of joining your local group. So go check it out and let me know what treasures you get to exchange!