Craigslist Scavenger Hunt

Oddly enough, you actually can use Craigslist for things other than exchanging DNA, exposing yourself to social diseases, and things you wouldn't want to explain to grandmom.

Craigslist is a website that is geared towards being a central place for people to post notes.  The notes tend to be categorized toward specific things and are also broken down geographically.   Select your Country, State, or City and you will have the list of items that people wish to talk about, sell, or purchase for that area.  Sometimes a city is broken down to more than one county, or you have a region presented together where you can select down.  South Florida is one of those, being about 90 miles from Florida City in the South to Jupiter in the North presents a need for that.   If you are in Wellington Fl near West Palm Beach, it is silly to drive to Kendall South of Miami for a free Palm Tree.

People do, but people are silly.

I've been reading the site for years now, and it is always entertaining.  When I lived in Philadelphia, I had a neighbor who was giving away an iMac and I got that and used it for a while.   Since I moved here, I upgraded that to another desktop Mac that I got on Craigslist as well. 

I need new tires.   Being out of work, I couldn't see spending the $600-1000 for the tires I really want for the Jeep even at the low end.   I was looking at the Free Board the other day and up in Delray someone had two sets of tires that he wanted to get rid of.  They were for a Jeep and were the same wheels as I have on mine.  I went up and got them not knowing if they'd have the same or better tread on the tires, but this is the Scavenger Hunt aspect of the deal.  It ended up that one set had a tire that was shredded, a second that was bald and two that were approximately as old as the ones I have on the car. 

I took them anyway since my car had tires that were badly out of balance on the driver's side and would shimmy to the point that it was fearful to go faster than 55. 

The end of the story was that I was able to use one as a spare, one on the front driver's side, and my never used original spare on the driver's rear of the car.  I took it out on I-95 here and it rode approximately normally up to "highway speeds".  No they weren't new but they were better than what they had and that person did me a great bit of help by posting those tires.

Thanks, Eric!

You never know how you can help someone and it is better than turning something into bulk trash.

Once I find another job I'll get brand new tires, the car only has 41,000 miles on it and it is a 2002 Jeep Wrangler.  It will run much better on 31 inch tires than stock 27 inch tires too.

If you know anyone who needs a Business Analyst, Senior Business Analyst, Project Manager or IT Manager within commuting distance of Wilton Manors, FL, or other telecommute position, let me know! 

One thing that Craigslist is not good for is buying things that are highly technical.  Yes, sometimes you can get computers cheap or even free like I did.  The problem is that you end up buying something that may be broken or overpriced and suffer buyer's remorse unlike anything you ever have had before.   It definitely is a "Let the buyer beware" sort of shopping.  "Where is, As is" was what they used to call it.

It is worth a look if you need something but go prepared to say thanks, but no thanks to the person and their item since there are a lot of unscrupulous people as well as scammers out there as well as the normal people who think they should just get full price for their 5 year old item.

On the other hand, if I find a bowflex or other weight set, free or cheap... It's mine!