I *heart* Craigslist & Rssfwd

Why? Because, as a kid, I loved looking through the classified ads to see if anyone was looking to get rid of something I wanted on the cheap.

For those in the know, Craigslist is essentially a classified ads section where the interface is minimal and easy to use and the ads are free. If you live in our just outside a metro area, like Philadelphia, you will find tons of people looking to sell their used wares or themselves (through personals, community listings, resume listings, etc.). Unlike Ebay, there isn't some frantic bidding (I hate to bid). Someone wants to sell item X for price Y and you decide whether the price is acceptable (The trick at times is to be the first to respond if the deal is good...more on that later). And...since you are usually dealing with people local to you, you can save by not paying tax or shipping (Beware the price you bid on ebay...is it really such a good deal when you factor in the shipping costs?)

Today, as a matter of fact, I purchased a set of 500 11.5g poker chips in a nice felt lined case for $15. A set like this would sell new for $75 - $100. How did I beat out fellow craigslist folks to close the deal? This is the "more on that later" part. Here is what I do when I am looking for a craigslist deal:

• First, go to craigslist.org. Find your local metro area on the right hand side
• Click on the "For Sale" hyper link. You can choose a subcategory, but I personally like to keep the net as wide as possible
• Once there, you can filter by keywords. Location may be important if you're only willing to travel so far for items or descriptive terms like "poker" if you're looking for a poker set. They've upgraded recently to allow you to filter by price or ads with images. I prefer to keep my filters minimal. Narrow too far and you may miss out on something.
• Click search and you should see a bunch of ads...some good and some bad. Perhaps you see the deal you are looking for and you are done at this point. If you want to keep this search active and have an email sent to you every time an ad fits your criteria, here's what I do (here comes the magic!)
• Scroll all the way to the bottom of your filtered list. You should see a RSS link in the lower right hand corner. Click on this link. On the next page, copy (Ctrl-C) the url address. It should look something like this: http://philadelphia.craigslist.org/search/sss?query=weight&minAsk=min&maxAsk=&format=rss
  

• Go to the following url address: http://www.rssfwd.com/
• Paste the craigslist RSS address from before into the text box and click submit.
• It will verify that you are submitting a true RSS link and then ask you for an email address. Give them the email address that you slavishly check into every minute. Click subscribe.
  
• Presto! You should start receiving emails every time someone posts an ad that fits your criteria. Once you find your special deal, you can easily choose to unsubscribe to the feed (similar to unsubscribing to any reputable email solicitation).

There you go. Since you are getting new deals soon after they are posted, you have the best shot of being first in line with a reply. And being there first in Craigslist (or any classified ad) is half the battle.

Have any other Craiglist tips? Share with the group please! :)