I'd love to ride shotgun with you. Our town doesn't do anything like this...everyone tries to garage sale the stuff...and some people have permanent garage sale things. We are also blessed with 2 salvation army stores and a hospital thrift shop....but like you say "better than cheap " is definately free.

We don't have bulk trash pickup in our area - you have to pay the garbage company to pick up large items. So when I have something big, or something that I think someone else can use, I take it to the main cross street nearby and set it out there. Things are usually gone within the hour. Just last weekend I took two perfectly usable saw horses out to the street. I was still taping the "FREE" sign on them when someone pulled over and loaded them in their truck :)

We don't have much of anything as far as bulk pickup goes. You have to pay someone to haul stuff away or pay to dump it in a landfill. A friend of ours has a bonfire party a couple times a year, and we get rid of junk that can't be sold by burning it (always trying to sell it or give it away first of course). So far we have burned at least 3 sofas, a bunch of chairs, 2 flip-chairs, a piano, and in the process we are clearing up the brush on his property. The stuff was broken and not worth repairing, and burning it is so much fun!

You lucky dog, I LOVE "curbside finds". Some of the things I get the most compliments on are just that, usually repainted or refinished, but a few were just cleaned up. So FUN.

I wish we had designated days! In my town, you call the trash dept for bulk pickup any week, so there is never a mass clean-out.

The best trash pick EVER was our tricycle. I found it on top of a "moving out" trash pile in front of our babysitter's neighbor's house about 8 years ago. PERFECT condition. All 3 boys have used it, #3 is using it now and loves it.

We were given two free bicycles and found another 12 speed on the street with a free sign. We took the two best ones in the be gotten ready for riding so we could take them on our trip to Yosemite. Got a real bargain...the bike shop only charged $15 per bike for a minor tune up and lube. He had to put on two tubes and tires on one bike so the total for both bikes was $61. We had to buy two helmets at Costco....cheapest ones were $19.95 each. Because it was such a chore at our age to get the bikes in and out of the van, we purchased a bike rack at Walmart for $39.95. After we did all that we took a bike ride and discovered my husband was too out of shape to ride any distance at all, especially at 4000 feet elevation. Two days later, he decided to try to "get in shape" and rode about a mile and a half....he ended up in the emergency room for five hours. They thought he had a heart attack but he decided he didn't want to stay overnight so he signed himself out. Now we have to pay the $50 ER co-pay. So perhaps, free wasn't such a bargain for us this time.
As it turned out, he did not have a heart problem but was just severely dehydrated.