Monday, July 02, 2018

Free or Cheap Homesteading Items

Not all homesteaders luck into inheriting a fully functional homestead with all the essentials. Depending on your homesteading goals there may be items you need or want in order to fulfill your homesteading goals. Buying things brand new can be cost prohibitive, with some items it may be nearly impossible to find what you want still in production.

We posted earlier on a good deal we got on our bee supplies, $600 for enough hives and frames to last us through several expansions. Sometimes the best way to get free or cheap items is just being in the right place at the right time. The Wanderers mom keeping an eagle eye out on Buy/Sell/Trade groups definitely worked out in our favor. Join as many groups on Facebook geared to buying and selling that you can, and actually monitor those groups. When someone posts something you know you want or need jump on it fast before someone else beats you to it. The competition in some of these groups can be fierce. We join groups for hobbies and activities we
currently, have and hobbies and activities we know we want to get involved with in the future.

Also on Facebook, watch the Facebook marketplace. We recently purchased a ton of tools, a wood lathe, various sanders, table saws, an anvil and a forge/blower. We initially found the guy on facebook marketplace because he was selling a planner and a joiner, when we went to pick up the planner and joiner we noticed the forge and how many packed outbuildings he had so we worked the connection. We expressed interest in the forge and told him that we were also in the market for a variety of other tools/equipment. Within a few weeks, he was calling us wanting to sell a bunch of other items. Express interest, let sellers know you have money and are willing to buy. All in all, we ended up spending way less than $100 for each big item we purchased from this contact, and he threw in a ton of small hand tools. The anvil was covered in thick layers of silver paint, when stripped clean we discovered it is a Hay Budden and weighs 130 pounds.

Estate Sales! We love estate sales and have purchased many many items from them over the years. Most estate sales will have sales on the last day, some will even mark things down 75% during the last hour of the sale. Estatesales.net lists all estate sales in your area, and many have pictures of items that will be in the sale. We scope out the sale through the website and then decide on our "action plan" for sale day. If there are things we want or need that we know will sell fast we try to make it to the sale within the first hour or so that it is open. Sometimes we will split up and head to 2 different spots in the house for the sale. The Wanderer will check out the garage and "man spaces" while I hit the sewing/craft room and closets and then we will sweep through the house together looking for items we need or want.

Auctions. This is a new one for us, we very recently started attending auctions. We ended up bidding on and winning a portable air conditioner for the garage, we won it in a lot with a desk and vanity for $7.50, yep 7 dollars and 50 cents. The very next week our HVAC went out in the house and we ended up using the portable ac to keep the house reasonably cool until we could get the HVAC fixed.


Craigslist has a section for Free items, this is usually curb alerts. People who are getting rid of things from their house so they just dump it on the curb for someone to scoop up and take home. I know a fairly successful "flipper" who goes out several times a month to pick up curb items to refurbish and sale. If local laws allow it you can also check dumpsters for discarded items that are still useful.

No comments:

Post a Comment

We would love to hear from you!