Do you collect/scrounge available free items for your homestead?

I just read a post from John Daley about some rainwater collection he did ( https://permies.com/t/271801/capturing-road-side-drainage#2845368 ) and it got me wondering, do you actively scrounge/bring home freebie stuff that has or might have a use on the homestead?

Things to ask yourself (especially if you don't have an ATM in your living room!):
*Can I use this for something now?
*Can I possibly use this for something in the future?
*What in the world could I do with this?
*Could I maybe trade this to someone for something that I don't have- that I need?
*.......

You get the point. No doubt a creative imagination (and some skills) helps, as does available space of course.  Needing something at the spur of the moment on a project (or something that broke  needing repair) can be deflating if you don't have the excess money to buy new or, just as importantly, lived a far piece from town. On the other hand, being in that same scenario and thinking ' I've got one of those! or I've got something I can make work!' is a small but great moment in life )

I learned growing up- never throw anything away. (Which can be both blessing and curse! LMAO)    

My neighbor describes his place as looking like Sanford and Sons, a TV series from the 1970s.

I might find lots of treasures looking around his place if I wasn't afraid of stepping on something and getting an injury.

Dear Hubby got two gallon wine bottles that he makes wine in.

Dear hubby has been helping him out trying to clean up another neighbors place with our tractor.  Hubby moved a lot of trash back into the woods where it is not as noticeable.

I have everything I really needs so no freebies for me.

Guilty!
Some things may never get used, which is a pity, some as you say may find forever homes elsewhere, but how can you let someone throw away (a perfectly good set of wardrobes, several bags of reject fleeces, a wind blown rowan tree...) a possibly useful item? Admittedly some haven't found their use yet. I'm not sure if that leaky stainless water tank will be useful for a rocket stove project, which was my first thought, or something else. Sometimes the 'gift' turns out to be rather expensive in time or actual money to complete, but you may end up with something really aspirational that way (like my free polytunnel project).

I'm hoping to start collecting building materials towards our house extension fairly soon, but the downside of keeping too much stuff that 'might come in handy' is that the space to keep it safely is limited. Decisions sometimes need to be made, but as Charlie points out you may be able to pass on or trade an item in future, once it has gone to the scrap the opportunity to give it a new life has gone.

Anne Miller wrote:My neighbor describes his place as looking like Sanford and Sons, a TV series from the 1970s. ........ .

I love that show!  Several times have I spread my arms out over my collection of "goodies" and told my kids, "One of these days you will inherit all of this!"

Remember...
Junk is the stuff you throw away.  Stuff is the junk you keep.  

I managed to scrounge some fleece a couple of days ago from a friend we were helping out who had somehow got some enormous bags of fleece for insulation. Their dog kept grabbing mouthfulls of it and running off and I shouted to him to take it to the car and drop it by the door so I could rescue it. The dog took no notice, but my friend laughed and gave me a big bag to fill up with whatever I wanted.

I just need to get that little e-spinning wheel made now...

Indeed scavenging is the spice of life!

Pallets from a construction company
Glass doors sitting at the curb out for trash
Bathtub tossed in a dumpster

These things helped along the vision of my bath house build (obviously with some new bought things)

A pickup truck makes it happen on impulse sightings...but that can be dangerous as I have definitely grabbed things to take home that have been more trouble than use :)

Nancy Reading wrote:Guilty!
Some things may never get used, which is a pity, some as you say may find forever homes elsewhere, but how can you let someone throw away (a perfectly good set of wardrobes, several bags of reject fleeces, a wind blown rowan tree...) a possibly useful item? Admittedly some haven't found their use yet. I'm not sure if that leaky stainless water tank will be useful for a rocket stove project, which was my first thought, or something else. Sometimes the 'gift' turns out to be rather expensive in time or actual money to complete, but you may end up with something really aspirational that way (like my free polytunnel project). .....
I'm hoping to start collecting building materials towards our house extension fairly soon........

Congrats on the trailer load of freebie polytunnel goodies!!! Boy could I use that kind of a great find!

Happy hunting on collection up for the house extension.  The ability to be some sort of flexible in regards to design sure helps there. Our new house is getting stuff that I've had laying around for years and it's awesome to use it. Examples: A bunch of legit circa 1920's bead board a friend gave me when doing some custom wood work for him. (Going on our spacious walk-in pantry ceiling.)  From my dear friend's old family homestead: a dozen doors (1940's) and some single pane windows for transoms in several spots. A 16' trailer load of 2x6 tongue and groove boards that I used for the flooring in one of the rooms and other way cool things!

Collecting: 'an excusable sickness'. LOL!

Cole Tyler wrote:Indeed scavenging is the spice of life!

Pallets from a construction company
Glass doors sitting at the curb out for trash
Bathtub tossed in a dumpster

These things helped along the vision of my bath house build (obviously with some new bought things)

A pickup truck makes it happen on impulse sightings...but that can be dangerous as I have definitely grabbed things to take home that have been more trouble than use :)

Cool bath house Cody!  Totally relate to the "more trouble than use" thing.  There's been plenty of times where I've used one of my top 3 quotes ever.  The Three Stooges were part way through one of their of escapades and Mo was standing there with hand on chin and shaking his head saying, "You know this was my idea but now I don't think so much of it." LOL!

Collecting/scrounging less than before....
One of the practices that I adopted in my 20s was to protect and anticipate the needs of my future self. This began by saving money for emergencies and retirement but evolved to other aspects of life over time. In my 40s, I was incredibly grateful to my younger self’s financial discipline but I could see that she made some assumptions that didn’t fit with my maturing self. One of those assumptions had to do with future incompetence. Younger-me had an inaccurate view that the needs of future-me would match those of younger-me: out of kindness, younger-me accumulated used stuff that she thought older-me would want in the future.
Little could she know that older-me would be very interested in spaciousness, nature, and pristine wilderness. The scavenging that younger-me did to make sure older-me would be okay became a real clutter burden. I thanked younger-me for her willingness to sacrifice so older-me would have stuff. But I also said to her, “I keep becoming more resourceful over time. It’s okay to stop stockpiling. What I really value is the joy of adapting to changing needs and conditions.” Thankfully, 40s-me got the message that collecting discarded stuff was limiting the  choices of an unknown future self. I am so grateful for her foresight.

Free stuff makes my world go 'round!  Some of it I keep for us, some of it I gift to others, some of it I sell in my vintage booth, though that will be on hold for now since the vintage shop I was selling at just finished and went away.  I have a secondary place at which I consign, but the percentage isn't great.  I'm formulating a new plan for the future, which will hopefully take shape in the next six months or so, but for now I'm having to be mindful about turning free things down unless we can use them in our own household, because there's not enough room to "plan for the future" right now re. free stuff.

One thing I don't scrounge is materials for building things, I'm not good at that and neither is my husband.  My inlaws are better at it, building things I mean, but my husband didn't inherrit that unfortunately.

I pick up pallets whenever I go to town with the trailer. Last week I scored some with 150 mm width boards and today I carefully pulled them apart to do a rustic board sheathing on a closet wall. Very happy with how it's turning out.

Phil Stevens wrote:I pick up pallets whenever I go to town with the trailer. Last week I scored some with 150 mm width boards and today I carefully pulled them apart to do a rustic board sheathing on a closet wall. Very happy with how it's turning out.

Nice.  "Repurposing" is just the modern word for what we always considered was simply utilizing things we had on hand/what was available.  Isn't it crazy how satisfying a little thing like that can be?!

I love me some freebie stuff I can use! LOL!

I actually spent yesterday prepping some junk for projects.
Organization can make the difference between boon and burden.
Unorganized stuff can take up so much  time and space you have none left for the projects you envisioned in the first place.
I just dropped some money on shop lights, so spending time in the basement is more enticing than before.
I've acquired dozens of cat litter buckets for organizing projects and materials,and I'm trying to hone in on projects that still excite me.
Right now repurposing scrap bike parts had my attention.
Years ago I joined a bike co-op largely  for access to the scrape!
I am looking to use bike parts for carts, treadle powered tools, "bug eye" geodesic domes, pedal powered compost trommel/seed baller,tool handles, concrete reinforcement, cold frames, and rolling hoop houses.
Maybe even a sawmill one day.
The combination of low cost, low weight and strength is pushing me ever closing to trying welding!
To get any of these projects done, I need room and some things have to go.

Something that has helped me let go of things is having places that will take my donations.
I can let things go knowing they will get another chance at being useful.
I even use this technique to help others clear out their hordes.
I will offer to take an item off their hands and immediately take it to a thrift store run by Saint Vincent De Paul.
They run a charitable pharmacy that does amazing work, they give vouchers to the needy and food to the hungry, so I feel great about those donations.

More recently I've gifted some more esoteric items to our local recycling hub.
They take things like boxes of screws along with items that the  government paid for recycling program doesn't.
They give away items for reuse when possible, engage store return programs for plastic packaging and bags, and actively process styrofoam, preparing it for recycling.
To encourage reuse of items they have a store with everything organized.
I'm talking writing pens divided by color and an entire section of Styrofoam coolers.
Used nursery pots, 12" x 24" tiles,5 gallon buckets, and all kinds of random items.
3 kinds of people tend to shop there,gardeners, teachers, or makers, and often some combo of the three.
I have a ridiculous collection of industrial electrical parts, old photography equipment, fasteners, connectors, bits and bobbles.
Rather than let's these items remain in the way of my projects I I've decided to move them along to the Hub, where maybe they will spark another makers interest.
I also donate cash to them, which may seem counter to the scrounging theme, but to me it's like protecting a favorite foraging spot.

^^ William Bronson, that is awesome stuff. Nicely done!

William Bronson wrote: Organization can make the difference between boon and burden.

Brilliant!
People are so generous to us, and we don't like to waste, so that means our house is literally overflowing right now with wonderful objects...or rather, objects that would be wonderful for someone else.

With "too much," I don't think I could ever really organize it all, so I am verrry slowly working through stages of an extreme purge right now. But I will sure donate it for someone else to scavenge!

Scrounging makes my homestead style life affordable and possible. I have not been shy about letting people know that would appreciate picking up their "trash". A goodly portion of my material goods arrived on the farm as discards and somewhat damaged. By using my time to clean things up and doing repairs, I now have a nice inventory of usable stuff. Looking around my place I see —-
… an electric chainsaw, leaf blower, riding mower, ATV, wheelbarrow, various shovels and other assorted gardening tools, lengths of fencing (very usable for making trellises), t-posts, a 16 foot metal field gate, 2 lawnmowers, lengths of metal pipe, lengths of poly pipe, a chain link fence gate, a roll of 4 foot high chain link fencing, a roll of 6 foot high chain link fencing, trash cans, many hoses, two  50 gallon stock tanks, 2 backpack sprayers, a small cast iron firewood stove, several rolls of carpeting, several plastic dog cages, a super large rice cooker, a nice aluminum ladder, enough steel roofing to cover my chicken pen, a washer machine, a refrigerator, a freezer, a clothes dryer. Gee, people are always tryjng to give the last 4 items to me. I never turn away coolers and I now have several. The list goes on and in.

As one of Paul’s Gurts, I live comfortably enough. One of the ways of helping to make that happen is by not spending money I don’t need to spend. And that’s why I can afford to buy a pick up truck when I need to.

Pallets - yes, I haul plenty of free pallets home. They are usable for all sorts of things.
Clothing - yes, I buy from cheap thrift stores, church bazaars, yard sales. Speaking of yard sales, I offer to return at the end of the day and cart away anything they haven’t sold and wish to take to the dump. I’ve gotten some real gems that way. And our local thrift store gladly takes whatever I don’t wish to keep for myself.