Oh Christmas Tree...

It's nice to come home from your Christmas vacation to find that your trees have finally turned to fall in your absence. I mean, it is New Years. Seems like time for autumn. Or something.

I took down all of my Christmas decorations last night - in record time: 50 minutes! We have decided after 8 years of fighting with the stupid fake pre-lit Christmas tree, that it was time to get rid of it. So, since I know you have all been waiting on the edge of your seats for Pigs' Next Cheapskate Tip 'o the Day.....here it is. I've educated you about the Grocery Game, I've enlightened you about Paperback Swap. Now....if you haven't found it in your hometown yet, let me recommend Freecycle. There's a group in most towns. What you do is join your local group and post things that you want to get rid of (for free) and people come and get them. It's kind of like very organized trashpicking. The goal is to keep things out of the landfill, which brings me back to my Christmas tree. My post went a little something like this:

OFFER: One 7 ft. pre-lit Christmas tree. Bottom 6 inches of lights do not work, courtesy one Very Bad Beagle. Tree is in three separate parts for easy storage and set up. We simply string one strand of regular Christmas lights along defective part of tree for a seamless look.

I posted that last night at 10pm and this morning I had four emails from people wanting to come get it. I put it on the front porch with a sign on it with the person's name I chose, and voila! The tree was gone from my porch by 9am. Then I drove over to someone's house and picked up a bag of 18 month-2T boys' clothes to rifle through. I found a load's worth of clothes to wash for play clothes and will pass the rest to a friend. Not too shabby, huh? Stay tuned for future Cheapskate Tips from Pigs.