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It’s amazing what you can get for nothing. You just need to keep your eyes open, writes Paul Whitelock.
You can get a lot of stuff for nothing in the UK. When I bought my last house there, the vendor left the place pretty much fully furnished. She didn’t want a penny for it all.
The website Gumtree offers lots of free items too. Before I emigrated to Spain I got a very nice leather Chesterfield sofa off that very website, which I gave to my kids when they were first setting up home in London after they graduated. It was since passed on to others, also free of charge.
My son Tom was given a car by a friend of his mum’s, old yet fully serviceable. He and his wife ran it successfully for a couple of years.
Here in the Serranía de Ronda, there’s free stuff too.
Over the years our good friend Jill has given us a nice jacket, that belonged to her late husband, a TV and an antique jug.
Some years ago, when I was doing up a house in Ronda for my then girlfriend, we were twice given a load of smooth stones for the garden by the builder’s merchant. He couldn’t be bothered to raise an invoice, he said!
Recently I took a fancy to an oak bookcase in our local hotel’s reception area, el Hotel Palacete de Mañara. I started negotiating a price with Álvaro, the owner, but in the end he just gave it to me for nothing!
Last week in the second-hand emporium Mi Altillo in Ronda, I enquired about the price of a rather nice Spanish grammar book that was on sale. Juani, the kind owner, just gave it to me!
Any day now, another local hotel, La Posada de Ronda, is going to give me three wall lights which match other lights I already have but which are no longer available to buy. I offered to pay for them, but they wouldn’t hear of it!
Our acupuncturist, Doctora Luz Calderón, gives us a free session from time to time. That’s much appreciated by all of us who go, as it’s normally not cheap.
Something I’ve not tried yet, because my wife Rita won’t let me, is a free hair cut at Peluquería Vicky in Calle Lauría in Ronda. Every evening you can get your hair cut by a trainee for nothing at all. Makes sense to me!
You can often get decent free stuff from the basura. I knew an Irishman in Setenil de las Bodegas who virtually furnished his house with things left at the rubbish skips. A month ago I spotted two decent dining chairs at a basura in Ronda – they just need a bit of gluing back together. A couple of weeks ago I got a set of metal doors which were destined to be thrown away and just this last week I’ve acquired a bead curtain for nothing (about 80€ new) and a nice wooden coffee table which I’m going to restore. Both left at the rubbish point near our house.
And the number of times when I go for my early morning coffee in the village at Bar Perujo and I go to settle up, somebody has already paid for mine.
Amazing! Who needs money? I reckon if you really put your mind to it, you could almost live for free.
