Thank you, Portland Free Pile!
by Katy on October 24, 2025 · 14 comments
My husband and I were driving home on Tuesday, when we passed by this Portland “free pile.” It looked tempting enough to pull the car over in order to peruse the wares.
I was mildly tempted to grab then dress shoes as they were of obvious quality. However, my energy is low this week, so I didn’t bother looking up the brand.
What did I grab? A few things for myself and one item to resell.
• I grabbed the pastry brush as I recently threw my one into the trash, as it had black mold that wouldn’t come off in the wash. This KitchenAid version has a wooden handle, which means it’ll require hand washing, but I can’t complain as the price was right!
• I also helped myself to the plastic bins, as my love language is free organizing supplies. I put the large bin under the kitchen sink to corral cleaning supplies and set the smaller one aside until I find a need for it.
• The best item? The Garmin brand navigating system!
I was able to test out the device while my husband and I ran errands and then I spent a few minutes deleting the previous owner’s information from the system.
Lastly I listed it on eBay, where it sold in under 48 hours for $40! I could’ve listed it higher and waited longer for the right buyer, but I was feeling generous, plus my cost of goods was pretty reasonable!
Click HERE to see my eBay listing!
I gotta say, it was nice to take a win this week.
Now your turn, what frugal things have you been up to?
Katy Wolk-Stanley
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{ 14 comments… read them below or add one }
That’s a nice free pile! I was out driving today and thought to myself that today is not the day to find free piles! Too rainy!
When I was out and about, I ducked into the bins with a small wish list. One item on my list was a new pair of jeans. I’d planned to just buy new ones, since I never find my size at the bins, unless the jeans are worn out, or too weird. I got lucky and found a pair of brand new jeans in my size. They were the right length too! (I have a hard time finding jeans that aren’t a wee bit too short for me.) Nordstrom has the same jeans on their website for $99. I am quite pleased.
That’s a great find, and I agree about today being a wee bit too soggy for free piles!
That’s a great find. I found a small dropleaf table in a free pile (bulk trash pick-up pile) for my daughter’s tiny apartment which she has been wanting. It needs a little work but the price was right. Take care.
That’s fantastic, I love a dropleaf table!!!!
Made 2 large batches of macaroni salad…one for me and DH. One to take to our niece’s house for a get together tomorrow. Had most of the ingredients. Everyone who sees it calls it “Amish Macaroni Salad.” 1 – I’m not Amish. 2 – Although it may appear that way, I’m pretty confident that I don’t use the same ingredients they use and vice versa. One of these days, I am going to make a batch for each of my Amish families and get an “expert” opinion. It’s chock full of veggies, so DH and I can have a large portion and consider it a “meal.” (Carrots, celery, green pepper, onions, green olives and macaroni. Dressing is mayonnaise, mustard, sugar, apple cider vinegar, and celery seed.)
Other than that, not much.
That sounds yummy, like the kind of thing people would bring to potlucks during my childhood.
Took clothes to 2 different resale shops=$48
The rest were donated to a local church clothes closet
I’m late to the tea party, however I’m on season 3 of Downton Abbey
I’m signed up for a free water color art class and my sister is also signed up
Putting up with my lunatic, controlling boss for a decent paycheck. Lord help me!
Made homemade pizza, dough, sauce, the works. Costs me about $7 for 2 large pizzas.
Thrifted some snow pants for my son and Colombian coat for my daughter.
Cleaned up my garden for the fall and took the dead stuff to the compost site.
Bought a book on EBay to share with my class to intro writing an allegory. They really enjoyed it! It was a nice way to end a Friday!
Good to hear from you Katy. Sending thoughts of healing and peace! A nice couple of finds in that free pile!!
I keep running into those Garmin nav devices, in fact, I found a set in the workshop a set of hand helds…should list them soon. You are such a good influence!
If those dress shoes are floresheim, probably spelling wrong, I made a ridiculous amt from selling my dad’s work shoes. Another pile for another day.
I don’t remember the brand, but they weren’t Florsheim as I would remember that. Work shoes, who knew?
Sorry about the loss of your dad
I had a Garmin that I bought for my husband, and I downloaded Snoop Dogg‘s voice for the directions. After he passed away, I realized I wasn’t using it at all, so I tried to reset it back to factory settings, and for some weird reason, it changed the language to Swedish. My boss‘s wife actually understood Swedis, so I gave it to her.
I sold something on eBay that I had on there for the last few months. And it went for the price I was asking! Win-win! I put something else on eBay today and I dropped the prices slightly of the other items I have sitting out there. Hopefully I can sell something else.
Nice free pile finds, Katy!
Not frugal for me, but I’ve been collecting piles of schtuff from friends (yard sale leftovers) and folks on my Buy Nothing group (also yard sale leftovers, things that no one claimed, etc). My son’s high school marching band had a “fill the Goodwill truck” fundraiser this week – if “their” truck is the heaviest of those high schools competing, they will win several thousand dollars. Hubby and I made multiple trips hauling over all the schtuff. Fingers crossed we win!
I also curb-picked an older backpack with frame, six holiday faux-pine wreaths, and two small holiday faux-pine trees in plastic planters, and brought them to the donation truck. The backpack required some scrubbing before donation.
I made a favorite cookie for hubby to take to a party that required mini marshmallows as an ingredient. I cut up some geriatric “regular” sized marshmallows that had been in my pantry for a long time (they were in a ziplock bag, so still soft). Used them up! Yay!
Used up some freezer items after creating a chest freezer inventory in Google Docs. Hubby and I share the list, and erase items as they are used. I’m actively looking up recipes to use up old-but-edible freezer items.
Had passport photos taken at AAA, which cost $9.60. Another place hubby had looked up – maybe Walgreens? – wanted $16.99. AAA for the win!
While at AAA, the very nice lady helping me mnbtioned their Visa card. As I currently have an (cough cough) Amazon-connected Visa card, I am considering making a change. I generally use Visa when shopping at Costco.
Frugal fail: hubby fell for an “expedited passport” web site, thinking it was the State Department web dite (this was before the government shutdown). We paid $$ more than was necessary. Hubby is usually much more careful – I think he tried to squeeze this in between work things, and just wasn’t paying attention. Lesson learned.
*site*, not dite