Owning a Home-Free on Craigslist

We have large expenses with our home, anything from the kitchen appliances to putting little things in and around the house.  We have begun using Craigslist to get some of the things that we need for our home, some of it costs like the lawnmower I bought(stupid, stupid)  http://financeandfitnessdreams.blogspot.com/2012/07/owning-home-lawnmower-from-craigslist.html.  One thing that happened yesterday while we were looking for a queen size bed for our spare bedroom, a Craigslist post said the items were for free, one of my favorite and most cautiously optimistic words, FREE.  Is this real, is this safe, is it worth the hassle?  I suggest reading on to find out!

I immediately emailed and/or text the Free post, while simultaneously asking my wife if this was something she wanted(Happy Wife, Happy Life).  My wife the frugal, one in our relationship, said yes with the caveat of making sure that we wouldn't just throw it away.  Smart idea on her part, I was willing to take the risk, the gambler in me I suppose, plus I didn't want to take the risk of having someone else snag this deal. 

After texting and reading over the ad the bed was less than a year old and lived in a decent area of the city, both pluses.  I showed up and talked everything over and turns out he is a graduate student just finishing up school and moving out of the country for quite some time and did not want to take the time to sell everything, he really just wanted to get rid of it quickly.  His one catch was that we had to take the IKEA dresser along with the bed, sold, well it's free but yes sold!  Everything was in working order and looked in great shape.  Now we officially have a guest bed and didn't pay a dollar for it.

Lessons

• I learned from this experience is to React Quickly, this ad was posted and I responded within 15 minutes. 
• Make sure you Research what you are getting into, I asked questions, researched the address, looked things over as much as possible online.
• Be reasonable.  Don't expect a brand new flat screen TV if you are getting it for free, think more 1998, huge black TV about the size of a dishwasher.

Overall once again I can put this on the smart buy list, I'm sure people would say no to this, but it will be cleaned, it will always have a cover and sheets, and don't forget this is for our guest bed, not the Ritz Carlton.