Sharing Economy – Thumbs Up and Costs Down

Everyone likes sharing! It started when we shared yummy sweets with our friends as kids. Now we’re grown up and do not go after the flavour experience, but rather the saver’s experience.

By sharing living space, office space, childminders, food purchases, cars, business services and even our own skills with others, it’s easy to keep more money in our own pocket. It’s no longer one-cost-for-one-user, it’s one cost divided amongst several users! It’s easy to start sharing again.

Benefit from a Shared Lifestyle

Even given the huge amount of money you spend as a tenant renting a residence, you still don’t end up with any permanent claim to your house. Investing so much in a residence over time comes close to what you’d spend on ownership of the property. Purchasing a new house is difficult for an average middle-class family because it’s a challenge to afford a large down payment, even when it’s due in instalments.

Consider, on the other hand, sharing the costs of owning a house with another individual or a group. If you are accountable for only part of the down-payment or mortgage payment, you will find it easier to qualify for a loan. This assumes, of course, that the borrowers have good credit scores. The cons of this scenario come in the form of problems that may arise if the expenses are not fairly shared. You may discover that you are paying for more than you use. If you decide to move, selling your portion of the property may be difficult.

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Food products that are truly garden-fresh and organic are not only expensive; they may also not be so readily available from your local grocery market. There is a way around these hurdles, though, and it involves sharing.

Join a Community Supported Agriculture scheme (CSA). You will able to get farm-fresh organic food products directly from your chosen local farmer. Different farmers offer different varieties of products so make sure that you select the one that suits your taste and accessibility.

If you are not prepared to commit right away, sign up for weekly plans so that you may cancel your subscription easily at any time if you are not too pleased. You can share your subscription with another individual or group to reduce costs even more. For example, you may get a week’s worth of a combination of fruits, vegetables, dairy products, flowers and nuts in a box for $22.

Sharing with another individual or group will cut your expense to $11 per week! Many foodies prefer to join a CSA as it gives them a chance to explore the tastes of a wide range of products. Some farmers even include recipes with the box to help you prepare a variety of meals.

The only thing to be careful about is to ensure you are the type of person who will make use of this service. Be sure that you will use this food to actually cook meals at home instead of eating out all the time.

For all you mommies, sharing nannies will not only cut the amount of money you have to pay a nanny but will also find your kid new friends and playmates. Sharing the costs might not be advantageous in the short run; however, the benefits will be clear when you total up the long-run expenditure.

You can identify families from your close social circles or at Care.com. Selecting a family for sharing childcare is an important matter so you will need to be careful in your decision-making. Make sure that the parenting style of the other family is similar to yours as you will sometimes have to leave your kid with them or keep their kid at your place.

You’ll also need to discuss how to deal with contagious illnesses which either of the kids’ contract. You’ll need to discuss how often and for what duration you will need the nanny. Paying according to usage frequency can result in disputes between you and your sharer.

Have you ever thought about why your car is just rotting away in your garage? Why not allow others to rent it from you at specified times? Zipcar owns and operates all the cars it shares. It does not contract with individuals to provide private cars as a share option. JustShareIt, on the other hand, does administer sharing of individually-owned cars. The online application determines the rates based on the hours of use and model of the car.

One disadvantage of this set-up is that you may not have the car available for you if needed in an emergency. You must also contract adjunct services that ensure your financial protection. For instance, JustShareIt charges a fee if one party fails to inform the other of a fine accrued or the car’s damage.

Make sure your car insurance policies do not disallow these types of arrangements. Another disadvantage is that the user may not always get the type of car they want. It can also increase the miles put on the vehicle, causing the car to depreciate faster.

How You Can Benefit from Sharing Skills

You can share your skills by making offers online to complete certain chores. Check out TaskRabbit, Washio ninja and other task-outsourcing applications. You may be in a position to drive around town, picking up laundry and delivering it to people’s homes. You might want to share your photography skills.

And you could even be hired as an expert graphics designer on freelancing sites like Fiverr. You might be hired as a temp at famous companies through sites like Wonolo. The only drawback here is that you might earn less than you are worth.

Benefit from Sharing Business

If you want to set up a small business and nurture it into a successful project, you need to step into the sharing economy. You can raise capital effortlessly through crowdsourcing. In crowdsourcing, all you need to do is express your idea online and offer incentives in return for financial investments.

You can rent transportation at a low cost from private car owners for your business trips or employee services. If you have rooms or facilities, not in use by your own office, consider leasing them to individuals or groups to make some extra money.

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