One person’s trash is another person’s treasure: your local ‘brocante‘
The closest thing to a yard sale in France is known as a ‘brocante‘ or a ‘vide-grenier‘. These aren’t just individuals who set up shop in their front garden! Instead, the town organises the whole thing, and anyone who wants to participate can do so for a small fee depending on the amount of space they need. In exchange, the town will take care of all of the advertising, and it works: the French love to come around and sniff for a great deal!
These are particularly popular in the months leading up to the great August holiday, so if you arrive during the spring or summer, stop by your local town hall and ask when the next one will be held. On any given weekend it’s also likely that there’s a brocante in a town nearby that you can easily reach by car. Fortunately there are sites that list upcoming brocantes: start with http://vide-greniers.org/, where can search by town, department, and region.
Barter
Before the invention of money, all transactions took place based on exchanging one thing for another. With the economy softer than it has been in decades, more and more people are looking to excahnge their old, unwanted items for something that they really need or want. If you’ve brought something with you that you find you no longer need, have a look at http://www.gchangetout.com/ or http://www.femmeactuelle.fr/multimedia/le-meilleur-du-web/site-de-troc-09495 for an idea of what’s on offer. If you’re in Paris, you can also have a look on craigslist.
Get stuff for free
Desperate people who have no idea what else to do with an old desk or lamp or bike are even giving the things away online. Rather than throwing it away, there’s sure to be someone who can take it off their hands–and that person could be you! You might need to do some repair work to put it in working order, but that makes for a perfect weekend project. Try looking on http://www.recupe.net/index.html for a start.
