Frugal
When DIY Isn’t Worth It
Mar 11th
Growing up, we weren’t rich by any means, but we weren’t poor either… I guess we could have been considered lower middle class. Anyway, to save money, my mom pinched pennies (No Name Brand food, etc.) and my dad did stuff around the house. His thinking was “Why should I pay somebody else to do it when I can do it myself”, and I agree, to an extent.
Can’t find what you’re looking for? Let us help!
Jan 13th
In some of my upcoming posts, I will be covering some features on BorrowMe that you may or may not be aware of. This will help to bring awareness to these features, but also to make life easier for the users (That’s you!).
This week, we talk about Wishes!
New Year, New Ways of Thinking
Jan 4th
It happens every year, another digit is added to the calendar and people set lofty goals of how they are going to change or better themselves this year. By February, a majority of them have forgotten their resolutions and life is back to normal. This year, set yourself some goals that you can actually implement, be a better neighbor, be a better tenant on earth.
Our ‘Buy Nothing Christmas’
Dec 8th
While many Christians still celebrate Christmas as the birthday of Jesus, the rest of the world has been sucked into the consumerist holiday that infects our lives like a plague, starting on November 1st. The holiday season has been poisoned by mass consumption and greed. While millions of people suffer, barely able to eat, local children are throwing temper tantrums because they didn’t get the latest *INSERT TOY OF THE YEAR HERE* in their stocking.
Helping the less fortunate without spending a dime.
Nov 16th
As the holiday season runs head on towards us, non-profit groups are scrambling to get their holiday programs into full swing. Due to the recent recession, this year will be incredibly tough for many Charities and even tougher for many families. But just because the purse-strings are tight this year does not mean you can’t help out the less fortunate this holiday season.
Turn your (un-)resolution into cash flow!
Nov 4th
Was your New Years resolution to get in shape? Did you go out and buy the top of the line equipment; Low Impact Treadmill, Full set of Free-weights, benches and an elliptical? Are all these items now collecting dust while you continue to gain inches? Welcome to the world of IDLEcise.
Cavalier Daily
Oct 29th
Imagine an online network of people so generous and resourceful that they lend and lease their unused belongings to people in their communities who actually need them. It almost sounds too good to be true.
Such a system of borrowing, however, already exists in Charlottesville, and it is growing everyday.
With all the perks of popular Web sites like Craigslist and Amazon, BorrowMe.com allows students, small organizations and other “frugal folks” to enjoy the convenience of borrowing the items they need, without the purchase price, safety concerns and hassles of cross-country shipping.
Created in 2005, BorrowMe began in Calgary, Canada as a way for people to save money on items like textbooks, furniture and cookware.
The idea for the company started with a Spiderman DVD and a close friend, CEO and Founder Sean Young said.
“I was walking to the rental store when I bumped into one of my friends,” he said. “We chatted and I revealed where I was going and why. He later suggested that I just borrow his entire Spiderman DVD collection instead of buying it.”
Everyone appreciates saving a few bucks here and there, Young said. Why not take the idea one step further?
“If I had X-ray vision and could look through all of these peoples’ garages, I’d find all of these piles of stuff that we all collect,” he said. “Who really uses all of the junk in their basement or garage? On average, how much dust does it collect? If everyone could share the things they didn’t use with people they chose, money would be saved and those items would be put to great use. Life would be a whole lot cheaper and everyone would be happy.”…
Read The Full Story:
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Stop trying to save and start investing.
Oct 23rd
With all the layoffs, cuts and overall economic downturn over the past while, more people are finding it hard to save money. When we do manage to scrounge up some cash to put away, it seems so little and our returns are minimal. Here are 5 tips to help you get on the right track for investing your money.
Renting your Textbooks
Sep 25th
At borrowme we are huge fans of textbook rentals for students. There are 3 reasons:
1/ The money. Borrowme may be new, but as of this writing sites like Chegg.com have already saved students over $44 million in reduced textbook costs through renting. Textbook buyback programs pay 10-15%of the original purchase price, and are immediately resold at 60-75% of retail. That represents an abusive practice in our books.
2/ Impact on people and planet. 20 textbooks is about 1 tree. (http://www.conservatree.org) x the 18 million students enrolled in universities and colleges in the US alone every year. As a comparison - it takes about 100 million trees to produce the total volume of junk mail that arrives in American mailboxes each year.
3/ Private ownership is not the only way. Despite what we have been taught about the high achievement of private ownership – temporary use items should move from person to person (the inspiration behind the creation of borrowme). Some items are not shareable – but textbooks are a prime candidate. Characteristics of highly ’sharable’ items include:
- Durability – does it largely maintain its value from user to user (not easily perishable, damaged or requiring maintenance);
- Temporary demand – do people need them for a short time, and then are largely done with them?
- Availability – are they in common supply on book shelves and in boxes?
The more any item matches these ’sharing’ criteria – the more ’shareable’ it is, and clearly textbooks do. Not only textbooks, but millions of other items from baby cribs & DVD’s to utility trailers meet this criteria. What will be required to bring these items into circulation is a system to match supply and demand. How can a person who needs something find the person who has it? For textbooks it seems – the answer is “the bookstore”. The other option is a place like Clegg.com where you can rent it.
A third option that has been the subject of discussion recently on various money saver blogs for students is the creation of local ‘Textbook Sharing’ clubs on campus. BorrowMe is a terrific tool for organizing a group and quickly listing required and available course material.
To find or start a local textbook sharing group on BorrowMe – go checkout www.borrowme.com/students. If you’d like to discuss the idea with me personally for your campus community, I’d love to hear from you.
– Sean
Does this make sense to you? TAKE ACTION before you leave, and make a small change in how you deal with your stuff.
Create a wish for any kind of special item on BorrowMe.
Create a listing to lend any book, dvd, tool or treasure to a friend or neighbor.
– Sean
http://www.borrowme.com/sean
Contact me directly.
Don’t forget to Come be a Fan, follow us on Twitter, or consider Getting Started.
Dreambank: Another way to give dreams, not Stuff.
Sep 24th
DreamBank helps fund dreams that matter.
Like BorrowMe, DreamBank is a story about having more by buying less. DreamBank.org helps any of us – from a charity to a student or family like ours to describe a dream, and ask family, friends and strangers to support it financially. It is an alternative gifting platform – helping to take us away from disposable trinkets, to the kinds of stuff that matters more.
Temporary treasures.
For some time now my wife and I have been looking for a good way to do something about the flood of ‘temporary treasures’ that well-meaning family and friends send to us, and the kids as gifts at Christmas, birthdays and other holidays. We are very appreciative of the thought, and the kids love opening fancy boxes – but surely there must be a better way. The difficulty of course is that gifts very often seem to separate and move rapidly in many small pieces to a surprising number of different places in our home, cars, and in the yard. The excitement changes to some frustration, much clutter and quite a bit of work to clean, organize, store, repair (often fruitlessly) and frequently dispose of these items. Many I find tucked in boxes with missing pieces, or immediately abandoned. I feel a bit sad to see it all pile up, and so little time spent enjoying it all.
The more toys they have – the less they are valued.
For a few years now our family has been trying to change our consumption practices – buy less, and borrow, fix and reuse more. We think it is the right thing to do for the planet, the kids and the community. In fact, we’ve notices that when the kids have less – there is a change in their attitudes towards their stuff. When there is less – they no longer step on their possessions. This is a primary measurement in our house of how much we value our things. There is a zero tolerance policy for clothes and books. They are never ever on the floor – and we certainly do not every step on one. But – the toys are often another story. With few exceptions – the more there are, the less they are each valued.
Making a decision to buy
If we are considering buying a new item for our home, or a toy for the children – we have developed a simple process, by asking several questions. When we see something interesting in a store or magazine we talk about it, and ask the following questions:
- How will we use it?
- How will we store it?
- Will it make our lives better?
- Is it something we principally already have?
- Can we borrow it?
- Is there an alternative that is better?
- Do we really want or need it?
- Would we want to use this money for anything else instead?
We are careful not to promote a scarcity mentality with phrases like. “we can’t afford that”. We emphasize choices (based on a recognition of the notion of finite resources), and age appropriate consequences of buying decisions. Often, the conversation with the children is very interesting, and the children change their minds on their own when they think about it more carefully.
We also have a few rules for buying something new.
- We never buy something we see for the first time (no impulse shopping for us, or the kids);
- If an item is truly worthy – it must be mentioned several times over the next few weeks – NOT prompted by advertising of any kind.
- When we buy an toy or item for our home – it is often a specific trip for just that item.
Traditional gifting at odds with our values.
It is always nice to both give and receive a gift. The obvious problem is the traditional gifting practices are at odds with many of the things we value, and we struggle with how to reconcile those without hurting people’s feelings, or taking about from their joy of giving.
Dreambank: Another way to give dreams, not Stuff.
We don’t have the answer yet – but one thing we are trying is the DreamBank. We have created a big family dream of going to Disney World in 2010, and have asked our family and friends to support our dream. Our hope is that this platform will be a way to give something truly meaningful to our family, without all the waste, clutter and hidden costs of the ‘traditional’ approach to giving gifts. I am not sure if we’ll be successful, and how our request will be received by family – but I think it is worth a try.
Does this make sense to you? TAKE ACTION before you leave, and make a small change in how you deal with your stuff.
Create a dream of your own on DreamBank.
Create a wish for a special toy on BorrowMe.
Lend one of your toys to a friend or neighbor.
– Sean
http://www.borrowme.com/sean
Contact me directly.
Don’t forget to Come be a Fan, follow us on Twitter, or consider Getting Started.