Fueled by a rapid rise in collaborative consumption companies, the Sharing Economy has been hailed as “the next big thing” and one of “10 ideas that will change the world”. But what the heck is it, and why should we care? This is the first in a short series of posts that will explain why everyone’s so excited about sharing, and how it can save you money, time, and even rejuvenate your social life.

Every day, we waste energy, space, and money, because we’re obsessed with the idea of owning things. Most of these things see about 10 minutes of use before we move on to the next “must have” item. The things we do use on a daily basis are built to break, and when they do, we toss them in the trash on our way out the door to buy replacements.

In the sharing economy, access is more important than ownership. It’s not the CD we want, it’s the joy of listening to the music. It’s not the cordless drill we need, but the hole it makes. Collaborative consumption companies make it easy to pay a little bit to gain access to what we need without the high cost of buying it or the burden of maintaining it. The sharing economy focuses our attention on connection and collaboration, turning neighbors into a support system and wasted assets into affordable solutions.

There are two basic types of collaborative consumption: B2C (business-to-consumer) and P2P (peer-to-peer). B2C sharing services typically operate like a normal company, where you pay a fee to access a shared resource. P2P sharing services exist to help people share what they’ve got with each other. P2p sharing can take the form of renting, bartering, or swapping, but anyway you slice it, it’s by people for people.

Since we’re all watching our budgets these days, we decided to kick off the series with a selection of stellar sharing services that can save you money without sacrifice. If you’ve got a story about how the sharing economy has helped you save money, please share it in the comments!

1. Parents

Why buy new when your kids only grow out of it in six months? thredUP is a online P2P consignment store where you can find gently used, brand name clothing for a fraction of the price. reCrib does the same thing for gear, providing a marketplace where parents can list and purchase everything from baby swings to toys. If you’re feeling a bit more adventurous, gather up a few friends to share a nanny or host a baby food swap.

2. Entrepreneurs

These days everyone’s got an idea for a start-up but no one has enough capital. Coworking spaces are communities where location-independent professionals gather to share expenses and talent. Most are highly social, a hotbed of collaboration, and offer printers, conference rooms, and lots of free coffee. Need to brush up on your HTML skills but don’t have the time or money for a college course? Skillshare lets you learn just about anything from anyone, MaestroMarket lets you pick the brain of industry experts, and crowdfunding platforms give you access to much needed dollars when the time is right.

3. Fashionistas

You know how you love to borrow outfits from your best friend? Well now imagine you have thousands of best friends, all with big closets full of awesome clothes. Rent the Runway works directly with over 170 top designers so you can rent dresses, accessories, and more for just a fraction of the price. Bag Borrow or Steal uses the same concept, only with top brand handbags, jewelry, watches, and more. Looking for fashion you can keep? Attend a clothing swap or browse the P2P swapping site Swapstyle.com.

4. Travelers

Seeing new places and experiencing new cultures is life-changing, albeit a pricey adventure. Just like clothing swaps give you access to a community closet, travel sharing sites can give you access to the houses, guest beds, cars, and local knowledge of friendly people around the world.P2p lodging marketplaces like Airbnb let you rent a loft in New York, an artists’ pad in San Francisco, or a villa in Italy, all for a tiny fraction of what it would cost commercially. Once you’ve arrived, car sharing services like Zipcar, RelayRides, and Getaround can put you in touch with the perfect set of wheels, or if you prefer to keep it non-gassy, look for a local bike sharing program. Believe it or not, there are even sites designed to help people swap houses for the summer or for keeps!

Image: Phillip Taylor PT

The post 4 Ways The Sharing Economy Can Save You Money appeared first on EcoSalon.

Clutter is a constant threat to sanity and comfort, creeping into our homes, offices, and vehicles with alarming certainty. Apps may not be able to clean the kitchen for you, but the right online assistance can get you back on track to a clutter-free life.

I love my dining room table, but I rarely get to see it. Pick a random day of the week and you’re likely to find it covered in things that definitely belong somewhere else. Unopened mail, phone chargers, books I swear I’m going to read, and my favorite, coats and scarves slung over the chair backs.

Although we most often complain about physical clutter in our homes and vehicles, mental and electronic clutter can be just as frustrating. A million unorganized bookmarks, hundreds of notes to yourself about articles you want to read or errands that need to be run. These are all what a good friend of mine calls “mental parachutes”–digital clutter that’s only slowing you down.

Even though it’s only February, it’s never too soon to think about spring cleaning, and the first step is releasing yourself from the clutter tentacles spread all throughout your life. Here are five tech tools, including mobile apps and online services, that can help you get organized and energized in time for Spring.

Image via yerdle

1. Swap ‘Till You Drop

My partner and I have this rule when we do really serious cleaning: if we haven’t used or appreciated something in the last 12 months, it’s out. The question is, where’s out? Donating is OK but impersonal, and the landfill is just downright wasteful for things that aren’t at the end of their life cycle. Enter the swapping service. Companies like yerdle exist to turn your “trash” into treasure. Their mobile app makes it possible to snap a picture and list items in a matter of seconds. Other local users can then “want” your item and a pickup arranged. Still seem like too much effort? Try Swap.com’s Valet Service. Simply box up all your unwanted goods, and ship them to the company. They’ll take care of photographing, storing, and listing the items on their vast website. You set the price and then decide whether to trade or sell.

Image via iGo

2. Universal Chargers

There is nothing more frustrating than fighting with a tangle of charger wires when trying to stave off a low battery alert. The more gadgets we acquire, the more cords we add to the cluster. iGo’s Everywhere Universal Wall and Auto Charger offers a path out of the madness. This gadget features a five-foot retractable cord and can be fitting with a variety of interchangeable power tips that make it possible to juice up a  laptop, smartphone, and e-reader all from the same charger.

Image via Instapaper

3. Instapaper

I’m a reckless bookmarker. Spending at least six hours a day working on the internet, I come across (or am sent) links to dozens of articles I’d like to read. Or companies I’d like to check out. Or recipes I’d like to make. All of these are dumped unceremoniously in my “other bookmarks” folder, which is now so out of control, I’m afraid to open it. Developed by Marco Arment, who also helped create Tumblr, Instapaper is a clean, simple and straightforward way to save online articles to read later. Simply install the Instapaper app and download (and organize) your unread articles when you have Wi-Fi or 3G coverage, then you can read them anytime: on the train, on the bus, in an airplane, at the bank, or in your favorite chair.

Image via Captio

4. Captio for Business Receipts

If you’re an entrepreneur or freelancer, you know that retaining proof of your business expenses is extremely important, still it can be hard to keep all those nondescript receipts and other bit of paper straight, especially when you’re working on the go. Available for Apple products, Androids and Blackberry, Captio lets you capture an image of your receipts wherever you are, using your smartphone. Pertinent information is then automatically stored for later analysis and can be used to generate expense claims.

Image via Stylebook

5. Control Your Closet

Disorganized closets mean most of us only wear 20 percent of our wardrobe, sometimes re-buying things we already have! The Stylebook iPhone app offers more than 90 features to help you get the most out of your closet. Import images of your actual clothes, create magazine-style outfits, plan what to wear and track your style inspirations with this totally customizable app. Can be of immense help if you’re a fashionista who’s having a hard time deciding what should stay and what should go. If you uncover designer clothes, bags or accessories that haven’t been in the regular rotation for awhile, consider selling them to Rent the Runway, or Bag, Borrow or Steal.

Top Image: smashmedia

The post 5 Tech Tools To Declutter Your Life appeared first on EcoSalon.

Can swapping be a cure for many of our environmental woes?

We like to share in Brighton & Hove. So much so, that one overexcited Freegler offered her used Mooncup (clean) on the gifting website. A “taken” message never appeared, so we will never know if the local commitment to reusing unwanted stuff goes as far as communal menstruation products.

Freegle is to the UK what Freecycle is to the U.S., and it started right here in Brighton. But long before the internet allowed people to give away a plethora of Billy bookcases or the gradual accumulation of tchotchke, there was the very first public swap shop: the street.

Unwanted items regularly get left outside people’s houses with “Please Take Me” signs, and with double beds, sofas and computers often found touting for new owners on the pavement, these free little markets do a roaring trade.

Roland Miles lives in the Port Hall area of Brighton. He says he and his neighbors regularly put stuff outside and it all usually goes within a matter of hours. One child’s bike elicited a knock on the door within two minutes of being left out to check it was really free. He says: “I once put out some boxes with about 300 books in. All but five were gone by the evening. As a bookseller, I am committed never to destroy a book – it is a sad fact that almost all books gifted to charity are shredded or sent to landfill. For that reason, giving books away like this feels like bucking a system in which too many companies’ growth depends on destroying what has gone before. It also feels good when you see the Please Take boxes outside people’s houses – it is like seeing a flag which announces that you are living among like-minded people.”

The city is also home to a Local Exchange Trading Scheme, two exchange websites, Bid & Borrow and Netcycler, and The People Who Share, a social enterprise set up with the sole purpose of promoting the sharing economy and encouraging people to be less about a “me” mentality and more about “us.”

Benita Matofksa is the founder and chief sharer of TPWS. She says the sharing economy is based on identifying surplus in the system, not just of stuff but of time, skills, knowledge or talent, and redistributing it to those who need it. It’s less about personal ownership and more about community.

She says: “We’ve been living in very individual, consumerist times and we’ve seen where all that’s taken us. We’re dealing with dreadful global crises. Brighton is the place to be for this kind of venture, the people really embrace it, but there is still resistance to the idea of sharing. People say what about me? What about my stuff? What about my interests? Why should I do that? What’s in it for me? These are some of the things we’re hearing all the time. There are some people who won’t find it easy, who say ‘I’ve worked for it why should I give it up?’ But it’s not about giving up things you need on a daily basis. There is loads of surplus in the system, there is stuff lying around that isn’t being used that could be used by someone else.”

Aside from the obvious advantages of sharing and swapping – financial and environmental – keen swappers also find themselves benefiting socially and emotionally. Liz Bolt (who Freegled a fresh squid) says the gifting community, through her acquisitions and the opportunities they have provided, has become very important to her. Her latest find was an enormous sack of knitting wool. Originally she intended to make pom-poms for a friend’s little girl but there was so much she ended up donating some to the children at the Brighton Women’s Centre pre-school and has asked about setting up a knitting circle.

She says: “A little act of generosity can go a very long way. Brighton is a very chilled out town and although it has its problems, most people are generous and kind. We are a very green city. We are also, apparently, the most godless city, of which I and many others are very proud. We do good deeds and help each other not because some sky-pixie says we should, but because it is the right thing to do.”

Perhaps ironically, the sharing economy has a value in the real economy, about $474 billion worldwide. It is an emerging market, but growing exponentially. Disruptive entrepreneur Matofska believes this is the path towards a genuinely sustainable global system and has dedicated her working life to moving it from the fringes and into the mainstream. She says: “Sharing is the solution to our crises, be they environmental, economic or social. People struggle because it feels like something new but it’s innate. We were all born to share.”

Image: My Swish

The post Sharing as a Solution to Our Environmental Crises appeared first on EcoSalon.

1. Reface Rather Than Replace Cabinets

Innovative companies can work with your existing wood and reface those cabinet doors with sustainable woods rather than trashing and starting anew. Read this post for more tips for the kitchen cabinet facelift.

2. Swap Decor with Family and Friends

You don’t need a piano and I don’t need that daybed in the TV nook, so let’s trade and recycle our stuff and get what we really need. It’s a match made in eco heaven when it doesn’t cost you a dime to swap decor, especially with people who have a good eye like you do, and are low on storage space. It’s how they did it in the olden days before widespread consumer waste and climate change. Here’s more.

3. Baby Steps Can Equal Full Grown Changes in a Room

Rearrange the furniture, buy a few new pillow covers, paint a wall. These easy fixes will refresh your pad without sinking lots of cash. As you’ll discover in this handy how-to post, it can all be done for under $30.

4. Repurpose Excess Upholstery Materials

Those fabric rolls are not doing anyone any good just sitting in the closet. Cut them up and redirect them to your interiors for pillow covers, framed art, bedding, even wall coverage like the picture shown above, if you have enough for adequate padding. See these great ideas for repurposing your excess.

5. Clean Before You Replace

Perhaps that rug can come clean with eco spot remover techniques. Why rip it out if it’s still useful? Another option is to cover a damaged section of the carpet by layering with a small, affordable area rug, one made of eco fibers that won’t cost the same as new carpeting or a large are rug. Go shagging for answers here.

6. Seasonal Accents Make Great Distractions

A collection of seasonal organic blooms and greens from your garden, lanterns, greeting cards, photos and tablecloths – they all can act as happy distractions in a room that is begging for a redux. Don’t have a garden? Head to the farmers’ market, the flea shop, the vintage shop in your hood, and spend little to stage your spaces with renewed charm. Head over here for inspiration.

7. Paint can Perk it Up

Even a dingy clawfoot tub can look ultra modern and cool by finding the right low VOC paints and giving the bath a new coat. You will find sprucing up furniture with paint can be a great cheap fix that refreshes your spaces.

8. Be a Thrift Shopper

It’s no wonder second hand shops in cities nationwide do well during hard times. These are outlets that actually offer discounts while more upscale sights like 1st Dibs are peddling vintage treasures that cater to those with lots of spare cash. Do some research and check out the shops in various neighborhoods to find out where nifty castaways are being parked.

9. A Room of Her Own

Sometimes just carving out one room of your own in your dwelling can suffice until you have a bigger budget to fix up the place. Are you craving that Project Runway sewing room? How about a closeted dressing room out of a spare bedroom? Having a blast doing just one space for yourself can be very rewarding, even if it is a multi-use corner for working, painting and reading. Own it with visuals on the walls and a fun rug that speaks to you. Experts say you will accomplish the most in a space you gravitate towards.

10. Spa Makeover

So you can’t afford to tear out the old tile and tired tub to make way for stone and steam. Use zen decor touches and nurturing elements to turn your blah bath into spa bath: Ideas include indulgent, organic towels; sensuous beeswax candles in an array of holders; yummy creams and oils displayed in a vintage tray; and my favorite Nob Hill Day Spa element – a large pitcher of spring water filled with sliced cucumbers or lemons and a pretty glass.

Each week here at EcoSalon, the editors choose a post from the archives that we think you’ll love. The original post can be found here.

Image: Elle Decor

The post 10 Easy & Inexpensive Decorating Tips appeared first on EcoSalon.

1. Reface Rather Than Replace Cabinets

Innovative companies can work with your existing wood and reface those cabinet doors with sustainable woods rather than trashing and starting anew. Read this post for more tips for the kitchen cabinet facelift.

2. Swap Decor with Family and Friends

You don’t need a piano and I don’t need that daybed in the TV nook, so let’s trade and recycle our stuff and get what we really need. It’s a match made in eco heaven when it doesn’t cost you a dime to swap decor, especially with people who have a good eye like you do, and are low on storage space. It’s how they did it in the olden days before widespread consumer waste and climate change. Here’s more.

3. Baby Steps Can Equal Full Grown Changes in a Room

Rearrange the furniture, buy a few new pillow covers, paint a wall. These easy fixes will refresh your pad without sinking lots of cash. As you’ll discover in this handy how-to post, it can all be done for under $30.

4. Repurpose Excess Upholstery Materials

Those fabric rolls are not doing anyone any good just sitting in the closet. Cut them up and redirect them to your interiors for pillow covers, framed art, bedding, even wall coverage like the picture shown above, if you have enough for adequate padding. See these great ideas for repurposing your excess.

5. Clean Before You Replace

Perhaps that rug can come clean with eco spot remover techniques. Why rip it out if it’s still useful? Another option is to cover a damaged section of the carpet by layering with a small, affordable area rug, one made of eco fibers that won’t cost the same as new carpeting or a large are rug. Go shagging for answers here.

6. Seasonal Accents Make Great Distractions

A collection of seasonal organic blooms and greens from your garden, lanterns, greeting cards, photos and tablecloths – they all can act as happy distractions in a room that is begging for a redux. Don’t have a garden? Head to the farmers’ market, the flea shop, the vintage shop in your hood, and spend little to stage your spaces with renewed charm. Head over here for inspiration.

7. Paint can Perk it Up

Even a dingy clawfoot tub can look ultra modern and cool by finding the right low VOC paints and giving the bath a new coat. You will find sprucing up furniture with paint can be a great cheap fix that refreshes your spaces.

8. Be a Thrift Shopper

It’s no wonder second hand shops in cities nationwide do well during hard times. These are outlets that actually offer discounts while more upscale sights like 1st Dibs are peddling vintage treasures that cater to those with lots of spare cash. Do some research and check out the shops in various neighborhoods to find out where nifty castaways are being parked.

9. A Room of Her Own

Sometimes just carving out one room of your own in your dwelling can suffice until you have a bigger budget to fix up the place. Are you craving that Project Runway sewing room? How about a closeted dressing room out of a spare bedroom? Having a blast doing just one space for yourself can be very rewarding, even if it is a multi-use corner for working, painting and reading. Own it with visuals on the walls and a fun rug that speaks to you. Experts say you will accomplish the most in a space you gravitate towards.

10. Spa Makeover

So you can’t afford to tear out the old tile and tired tub to make way for stone and steam. Use zen decor touches and nurturing elements to turn your blah bath into spa bath: Ideas include indulgent, organic towels; sensuous beeswax candles in an array of holders; yummy creams and oils displayed in a vintage tray; and my favorite Nob Hill Day Spa element – a large pitcher of spring water filled with sliced cucumbers or lemons and a pretty glass.

Image: Elle Decor

The post 10 DIY Tips for Redecorating on the Cheap appeared first on EcoSalon.

My lovely, celebrity-style dressing room is a spare bedroom I stole in the house, a spare that once housed a maple crib, green nursing glider and armoire of precious, spit-up stained Baby Gap dresses on mini-hangers.

Today, it’s my own little retail Mecca (organic, of course). But I do allow my daughters to visit and check out the blouses and shoe rack, and yes, even borrow on occasion. That sort of thing was taboo when I was growing up. Moms were moms.  Friends were the ones loaning stuff.

My own stylish mother (here with me and Grandma Zelda) towered over me at 5-foot-9 (not counting the beehive do) and always wore at least a size 14. She wasn’t a Laker like Julia Child and her sister, Dorothy, but when she got married, she wore flats so not to surpass 6-foot dad.

I hung out in Mom’s cavernous walk-in closet while she was away at luncheons. But no way could I actually borrow one of those gowns since they hung on me like a puddled curtain. I also was drawn to her off-limits, pointy, size-10 pumps, dyed to match her Jacky suits.

I was the fourth child and the runt of the litter – considerably shorter and smaller than the rest. (My theory is mother smoked a few more cigs and sipped a few more martinis when she was preggers with me.) But to be fair, I’m also considering the DNA link to my small, Polish ancestors.

Cut to my gorgeous teenage daughter with a great sense of style, who caught up with me in stature a few years back. I provide her with her own little Nordstrom Rack down the hall. I take full credit for cultivating her sense of entitlement since I have been most gracious about loaning her items, and have only kvetched a few times when they weren’t returned on time. She is very responsible and that counts.

Combined, Syd and I have a substantial inventory. I’m proud to say a chunk of it is the ski apparel we share for our annual Mommy-Sydney ski weekends in Lake Tahoe.

I was glad to squeeze into a pair of my daughter’s skinny jeans for my birthday outing with friends in August, and only felt a pinch after the second drink. You dirty martini, you!

How does the sharing work? Sometimes we fall for the same cardigan and it can make more sense during hard times to buy one to share and take turns – you know, like college co-eds on a strict budget. Call it the The Daughterhood of the Traveling Pants.

I also prefer to loan rather than buy her a dress for the countless B’Nei Mitzvah parties and other events she seems to attend. If she wears something of mine, it feels like new to her, even though I’ve worn it a dozen times.

This whole lending thing is why those smart couture rental shops, like Boutiqueville in Chicago, do so well. Why own something costly when you can rent for the occasion? When the high is over you send it back. Thank you, it was a great date, but onto other matches.

I should point out it isn’t just us girls sharing the wealth. My daughter also gets warm and fuzzy about wearing her dad’s old sweaters. I seriously think it brings her closer to him in a very sweet way.

Guess teens have been burrowing in oversize wool since Ann-Margret sang “How Lovely to be a Woman” in Bye Bye Birdie. He doesn’t mind her using the old sweaters, or at least, has never complained.

I got to wondering if other kids and parents are comfortable with community closeting or if most families are fiercely territorial about their closets. It certainly requires trust and respect, and the right kind of green deodorant.

I did a bit of research online and found little has been written on the subject. Hurray for me!

But I did stumble upon an interesting post on How to Share Clothes with a Cross-Dressing Husband.

Okay, the ground rules killed me: Killed me! They included keeping his paws out of your underwear drawer, making him replace anything stretched, torn or stained, and drawing the line when it comes to your most precious blouses or skirts (i.e. the ones with price tags still attached). The helpful primer also suggested shopping together to make sure you have the same taste. Oy!

None of this would work in my marriage. My husband is a large man who prefers high-wasted, baggy slacks to hip jeans. If he were a cross-dresser, he’d still be swishing around in those Dean Martin pants.

I do like some of his Oxford shirts and could see slipping into one after a post-sex shower and cocktail in bed, but since we don’t schedule those kind of Hollywood encounters (we don’t eat Chinese out of the box either), it’s all just another fantasy, like wearing my mother’s Yves Saint Laurent caftans.

I do have friends who are married to dainty men with little feet and excellent taste, and I could see trading with one of those fellows, swapping Indian tunics and Moroccan slides for a tux and velvet slippers when those Victor-Victoria mood strikes.

Of course, the well-dressed gay husband is top drawer when it comes to swapping, assuming he would cooperate. His rules might be too stringent for even me. I sort my closet by color but not by texture and season and don’t iron a thing. Crisp is not in my vocabulary.

No, I think I’ll stick with sharing with the girls, my wonderful girls, grabbing a wrap for Lauren when leaving for a party, pulling a dress for Sydney for a Bat Mitzvah. Selecting a hand bag that works. Maybe a trinket or earrings to tie it all together.

Does sharing benefit my daughters more than me? Well, naturally. It goes with the territory when you’re a consummate stylist and mother – who still misses dressing her dolls.

This is the sixth installment in Luanne’s column, Life in the Green Lane.

Main Image: In Style

Image One: Luanne Bradley

The post Sharing Family Garb Is Good Savings (if You Can Stand the Loan) appeared first on EcoSalon.