Collaborating for a more frugal, sustainable lifestyle

I’m really looking forward to implementing some exciting environmentally sound and frugal practices into my lifestyle for the spring and summer.  For one thing, my friend and I are talking about ways we can  share our resources.  A most generous person, my friend is also lucky enough to live in a house with a lawn and garden.  With my tiny condo balcony, I am more than thrilled to have the opportunity to help her with her vegetable and herb garden.

I really believe that collaboration is important to living a frugal, sustainable life.  We have travelled so far off track, with “success indicators” being private ownership.  In our consumerist culture, we promote the idea that the only way to access goods or resources is to buy them.  And the ownership of such things - not only cars and homes but all sorts of goods and services - become icons of financial success. But there are so many opportunities to share and collaborate with our friends and neighbors, by bartering, carpooling, sharing tasks like gardening or home repairs, babysitting and cooking.  And living this way reduces waste as well as cost.  In fact, collaboration is a cornerstone of frugality, and used to be a necessary part of survival.

It can be difficult to take initiative to create a collaborative lifestyle, but not impossible.  I don’t believe it’s necessary to live in a co-op or Kibbutz in order to implement these ideas.  Simply volunteering to share with willing neighbors, friends and family is enough to start.

Do you share or collaborate with anyone in order to save money or reduce waste?

The Coupon Box

Just over a week ago, I had an embarrassing incident at the grocery store, where I dropped my coupons all over the floor, and the cashier yelled at me for not having all my coupons sitting next to the products I was purchasing. To prevent this from ever happening again, I got myself a “coupon box”

Although mine is not as elaborate as others’, I think it will really improve my efficiency from carrying around a Ziplock bag everywhere I go.

The index box itself is small and fits in your hand. It cost me $2 at Staples (I bet I could have got one for $1 at Dollerama!)

I used it the other day and certainly found it more useful. If you create a coupon box, or have a different idea for organizing your coupons, let me know!

Any good deals in there, Butternut?

Save bucks by bartering

A couple of weeks ago, Oprah Winfrey did a show on Money Saving.  In case you missed it you can catch the straight goods at Oprah’s website. In fact, her website is loaded with money saving tips!

Unfortunately, most of the tips seem to be old news to those of us already enshrined in the money saving culture.  However, one great tip that stood out to me was the usefulness of bartering with friends.

On the show, Cassandra and Stacy shared with Oprah how they swapped couches, and swapped services with other friends.  For example, Stacy provides free dance lessons to her neighbors’ children, and in return, her family can eat at her neighbors’ restaurant for free.

Recently I watched a children’s film - the most popular children’s film in Japan, actually - called Kiki’s delivery service.  In the movie, a young witch named Kiki leaves home at age 13 and is able to find a place to stay and enough food to eat, and she starts her own delivery service.  She accomplishes all of this in part because she finds adults who are willing to barter with her - they provide food and rent while she takes care of their bakery part time.

It got me thinking why we don’t use this system more.  Why are we so focused on accumulating new stuff all the time?  There is enormous potential - we all have extra ’stuff’ that we don’t need or don’t use, and we all have skills that we could share.  Meanwhile, we spend our time shopping and the stuff we no longer need ends up in landfills.

So here’s an exercise: think about what you currently want and need, and see if you can trade something with your friends to get what you need.  Have a book you’d like to read, a movie you’d like to rent?  About to go shopping for fall clothes?  Need a babysitter? A plumber? Someone to help you fix your computer? Simply ask around and you might find exactly what you need - for free!