Unexpected Benefits of Giving Freebies to Facebook Strangers

I bet Marie Kondo didn’t see this coming.

Tracy Luk
6 min readOct 27, 2021
Photo by Alex Green from Pexels

Have you ever tried making money off of old clothes? If you have loads, selling items one by one online can be a hassle, and it’s either a hit or miss or not worth all the effort.

That’s why Facebook Groups come in handy.

Where I live in Tokyo, there’s a group called Mottainai Japan; mottanai means “such a waste” in Japanese. It’s a community for local expats to give away unwanted items for free. You don’t have to worry about scams since money isn’t involved. Moderators screen users, and my experiences have been safe, straightforward, and simple. It goes like this:

  • Post photos of your stuff
  • People claim in the comments
  • Arrange for a pickup in person

The general rule of thumb is that whoever is the first to comment gets the item if all goes well. But it may be inconvenient for you to meet up with this person, or someone else is more deserving of your freebies. So far, I’ve noticed two issues with first-come, first-served claiming through comments.

Beware of rude members

All some people type is “MINE.” There’s no sign of “Please” or “Thank you” or a “Your…

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Tracy Luk

Tokyo, Japan | INFP | Minimalist | Parent | Avid Reader | Seeker | Em Dash Lover | Never without a camera going with the flow with my kids in tow ♡