The following is a guest post from Kristen Cavaliere. Not only does it fit in well with the concept of frugality, but it also works perfectly for people who are trying to simplify their lives, own fewer possessions, and build strong bonds within their communities. Hopefully you’ll find some good ideas here, and be inspired to come up with more of your own.
Neighbors Can Be Frugal Together
These days it pays to be frugal. One untapped source you may not have thought of is your neighbors. If you have a close-knit neighborhood, you can use shared activities to financially benefit from each other.
How do you get started, you may ask? Simply invite your neighbors over for dinner or have a potluck over a long weekend or holiday to get to know one another. Then, TALK!! Once the ideas start being thrown around, it’s guaranteed more than one neighbor will be willing to become frugal together. Here are just a few suggestions:
Shared Resources/Shared Equipment
Trimming trees is so much easier with a great pair of shears. Instead of investing in a pair, ask your neighbor to borrow theirs. You can also talk to those in the neighborhooda about co-buying large equipment such as a ride-on lawn mower or edger.
For just a few hundred dollars, you can wind up with many years of use of a top-quality riding lawn mower and bear only a small fraction of the maintenance and expense.
Share your Green Thumb
If your neighbor grows a garden, meet up with them before planting season to discuss planting different things in each of your gardens and sharing equally.
Bulk Meat
Talk to several families about purchasing a butchered and packaged cow. Usually, you can get this far cheaper than retail at a meat locker. Sell shares of it and split up the meat so that you don’t overload your own freezer.
Neighbors that hunt together every year may also want to split their prizes among the neighborhood as well.
Neighborhood Meals
A great way to get to “eat out” with only the cost of one home-prepared item is by getting neighbors together to have rotating meals. Once every other week or so, one family cooks for everyone. This will work year-round but in the summer, cookouts are a great idea for getting together. Each family is assigned to bring one dish, rotating the families that bring the hamburgers, hot dogs or skewers. The kids and parents have a lot of fun, and it’s very affordable and simple to put together.
Mutual Babysitting
Offer to watch a neighbor’s children one Saturday night a month in exchange for them watching your kids once a month.
This can be especially valuable at Christmastime. It’s great to get the children out of the house so that the buy and wrap present, while knowing they’ll be having a grand time at their friends’.
Movie Night Out
During the summers, get together and watch a movie outdoors. This is a lot cheaper than going to the movie theater … tickets are free and popcorn consists of a few bags per family popped in your microwave. No one is sitting behind your kids asking them to keep it down either! If the kids get bored, there’s a built-in playground (a yard) close to you and you can still enjoy relaxing with friends and enjoying the movie.
In order to be frugal and benefit from each other, you cannot be shy! Some of your neighbors may have already thought of these ideas but are too timid to bring it up. When it comes to being frugal, you need to take the initiative to start saving in the long run.
Many thanks to Kristen Cavaliere for the the guest post.
Kristia@Family Balance Sheet says
We LOVE LOVE LOVE our neighbors. We live on a 40+ year old street with a lot of original homeowners still living in the homes they had built back in the 60’s when their kids were babies. They are very protective of the street and the other home owners. We are very fortunate.
We had a snow storm of about 6 inches yesterday afternoon and into the evening. I could hear our 75 year old next door neighbor out with his snow blower at 9 at night. This morning, my husband looked out the window and said someone had shoveled our side walk. I think I’ll be baking some cookies today to take over. He has done that before and with any major storm, my husband goes over to help them with their snow and in return they let us use their snow blower. We usually buy them gas afterwards. Two other neighbors have purchased a snow blower together. Every one always tries to help each other out.
My next door neighbor and I are always sharing extra summer garden produce. She also has an outdoor clothes line that she lets me use. I only have drying racks, so I use her line on occasion for my big items like sheets, blankets, etc. She almost insists that I use her line when she is not using it.
Marnie says
I love the idea of watching a movie outdoors. But are you referring to a drive-in theater or actually plugging a t.v. in outside? Sorry if it’s a dumb question!
Suzanne with Laughing Wallet says
Our neighborhood is slowly experiencing a turnover from long-time residents to newer ones, and sharing resources has been a great way of connecting with our new neighbors! I was lucky in my last neighborhood to have a next-door neighbor who used to leave me bags of fresh produce from their garden – I’d come home and just find a bag of tomatoes, peppers, etc., just hanging on the fence! It made me feel so great, I’ve carried that over in my new hood – sharing stuff when I can. It really creates a sense of community.
Caragh says
We used to have the best time with movies on the lawn! My husband would hang a sheet and then use an LCD projector and his laptop (both work-owned). It was easy to do. We would invite all of the neighbor kids over and they would lay on blankets and eat popcorn and watch the movie under the stars. Simple fun!!
Colorado Girl says
We have an elderly couple next door. Between their family and ours, we would barely have enough trash for a full can every week. They tried, unsuccessfully, to get the trash company to pick up bi-weekly and lower their rates. We finally decided to share our trash service. They still pick up once per week, and we still barely fill a can even half full! {we are saving money as well!}
Every summer, we have a neighborhood barbecue. We all meet at one house and bring a dish to share! What fun!
Annette says
We’ve been doing this kind of stuff for years. Sharing equipment, buying and splitting bulk goods, even sharing trucks and expensive jewelry. We’ve got a community farm and composting system. Now we using an online tool called SplitStuff to find new participants and organize the logistics.
Annette says
We’ve been doing this kind of stuff for years. Sharing equipment, buying and splitting bulk goods, even sharing trucks and expensive jewelry. We’ve got a community farm and composting system. Now we’re using an online tool called SplitStuff to find new participants and organize the logistics.
Molly On Money says
I’ve heard of woman sharing expensive jewelry. It’s such a creative solution!
I have a group of friends I do a few of these things with- we buy several cows every year, butcher them and split them between families. We also do a veggie/preserve swap.
Something I’ve always wanted to do is a home maintenance swap. My idea is to pick 3 other friends that have home projects. Meet one Sat. a month for 4-6 hours. Each month you would go to one friends house and work on the project she needs help with. It could be things like starting a garden, putting pavers in, putting shingles on the roof, raking leaves.
I just find it’s much more inspiring to do some of the chores/projects around my house when I’ve got help.