Let’s Swap: Baby Goods, Not Wives

As I’ve moaned before, our house is fast running out of space. We’re so tight that one of our dressers, which we use for Lael’s clothes, sits in a narrow hallway.

Why not put it in Lael’s bedroom? Glad you asked. We don’t have one yet. Until she’s old enough, Lael lives in our bedroom, which also is too tight for the dresser.

Eventually we’ll have to dismantle the office and give Lael her own room since Seth’s closet-like bedroom is too crowded for sharing. Then we’ll have to cram, cram, cram our office gear into our bedroom. Then again, who needs a living room?

We also are at a phase in our life where we can’t quite get rid of baby stuff yet. Sure, we’ve given away most of Seth’s baby clothes – except those that Lael can wear some day – but we’re still acquiring stuff for our quickly growing girl. (Thanks for the clothes Renee.)

Soon, though, we will start unloading clothes and toys. Since we don’t have any friends needing stuff at the moment, an e-mail I received today may be our salvation: swapbabygoods.com.

This is likely to make my wife, who is every much as intimidated by eBay as I am, very happy. Swapbabygoods works a lot like ebay, only simpler and on a much smaller scale. You simply list what you want to buy or sell and then hope for the best. If someone goes for it, you ship and they pay. Or vise versa.

Swapbabygoods is in its infancy, so there are no fees yet. That’s coming down the road, promises site owner Asma Manzoor in the Terms and Conditions. In the meantime, you can put up to 20 items for sale free of charge.

So maybe we won’t need rescuing from mountains of junk after all. You know, like on the TV news where they go into an 80-year-old’s house and need a forklift and semi-trailer to haul all the stuff out? Then again, we do have all those books, for my wife’s kid lit review site….

Additional resources – here are some other places that help you unload baby stuff though I make no guarantees about the quality of any of these sites:

• Mykidscloset
• Babyloot
• Craig’s List – I posted the San Francisco link, but you need to choose your city.

Comments

[Anne]

I glanced at this quickly and thought it said "Let's swap good baby" and wondered what you were up to.

After all, perfectly good babies fetch a lot of money these days, why GIVE her away?

[brettdl]

You do have a point.

[Karilyn]

Hello, I was just wondering if any of you are already members of Posh Points. If not, you could swap this there! It's basically just like swapbabygoods but better since they have way more people who use the site so tons more stuff and you are not limited to only swapping for baby items but things everyone can use. When you sign up, you get 15 poshpoints to spend immediately. Heck if they don't have what you were looking for they have a FREE want section too! This way you can swap your items for things you really need!!

Hope this helps!

Karilyn

If you're interested, here is a referral link to sign up: http://www.poshpoints.com/default.aspx?ref=7050

http://www.wowio.com FREE eBooks!! also Have 10 friends get a free iPod. If you choose to sign up, please put my email in as your referrer: khrisncole1213@yahoo.com

[Jody Reale]

I wondered if you'd heard of or tried Zwaggle yet. (http://www.zwaggle.com) It's a newish Web site launched in the spirit of extending the life cycle of our kid and baby gear, thus saving the environment, money, and resources.

[Lisa]

Loved your article :) Thanks! Funny that some body mentioned poshpoints a few posts above, that website do not exist anymore. The points system swapping websites are a rip off. You are left with un-used points and they shut the services because there is no more stuff listed. I have been burned before and will advise everyone against this system.