The Woes of Craigslist

By now, most people have heard of the ultimate classifieds for anything and everything known as Craigslist.org. You can pretty much find anything on this website - jobs, dates, free stuff, furniture, toys, clothing and so much more (even stuff I don't dare talk about *shudders*). Most of the stuff is gently used to often extremely used stuff that people no longer want. Sometimes you can find something brand new or even hand made. Being that I'm on a budget and I have always heard such great things about this site, I thought I'd have a serious look. Too bad I'm not impressed.

Despite managing to find a few things I am interested in, it seems that getting people to respond to you about your interest is really hit or miss. But that's not even the hard part. The hardest part is clicking on advertisements for something that sounds good by the subject, and getting about 2-3 sentences about a product... and no picture! How am I supposed to know if I'm interested or not, if I don't even know what the product looks like?

Worse - Craigslist is organized by major cities. The major city it gives me is Columbia, SC and that's a good 45 minutes away from me on a good day. And that's just the starting point - a lot of the postings are from areas up to 3 hours away. By the time I would factor in time as well as gas, I'm no longer really getting a deal on stuff.

I think I'd rather spend a little more money on stuff I know is new and that I don't have to drive hours away from my home for.