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Save Money by Sharing

Written on April 24, 2009 by George Krueger & Mary-Lynn Foster in Money

Our parents taught us to share. It was part of being a good little boy or girl. The economy is reminding us adults about the value of sharing.

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Hear George & Mary-Lynn share their bigg idea for sharing on The Bigg Success Show! Click the purple player: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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Home for Sharing

For example, some people are now sharing living space. More and more people are accepting the idea of having a roommate again by renting out a room to help pay bills.

There are a number of people who are out-of-work and looking to save money every way they can. “Necessity is the mother of invention” as we’ve heard.

Co-working

Another popular idea is sharing workspace. Freelancers across the country are creating co-working stations in their communities where they can share office facilities and other resources.

Instead of going it alone – signing a long-term lease, paying utility bills, buying office furnishings and equipment – they pay a fee and share space with other freelancers and entrepreneurs.

The spaces are usually nice and bright. They have a conference room and maybe even a full-time receptionist.

It’s not just about money. For freelancers who are starting to feel like loners, it gives them a chance for in-person human interaction during the day.

Sharing infrequently-used items

We started thinking about other ways to share. One example is a lawn mower. We only use our mowers once or twice a week. In our area of the world, we only use it for about half of the year. Would it make sense to share a mower with a neighbor?

As long as both people don’t feel the need to mow on the same day at the same time, it would probably work. There are issues – you have to both agree to take care of the mower and those sorts of things.

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george This makes me think of my dad. If he owned something, he took really good care of it. If he used something that someone else owned, he took really, really, really good care of it!

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Sharing for fun

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marylynn I had an event coming up and I didn’t know when I would find time to go shopping. I told one of my girlfriends about it. She said that she had the perfect dress. We went over to her house and, sure enough, she did!

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george I needed a pressure washer to do some clean up around the house. I told one of my friends that I needed to go rent one. It turned out that he had one that he let me use for the weekend.

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Just so we don’t give the wrong impression, we also share our stuff with our friends!

A fun way to share

Since we like to do everything in a bigg way, let’s ramp up this idea of sharing more. Why not organize an event with a group of your closest friends?

Hop from house to house. If you want, you can have appetizers or organize a full meal as part of the activities. You can do it all in one day or create a series – this month at our house, next month at yours.

At each house, let the host show off the wares that he or she is willing to share.

It could be a Fashion Show – from clothes to accessories. Try them on if you want. Parade around. Show them off.

Or a Home Show … from power tools to hand tools. Test them out. Complete a project together. It’s your show; do what you want.

You could have a Home Entertainment Show. Show off DVDs, books and Wii accessories.

You can all see what each person in your group has to share. Then the next time you need that certain something, you won’t have to go out and buy it – you’ll know Joe or Jane has it.

This is a fun way to spend some time with your close friends. You’ll find that it will spark a lot of fun conversation and you’ll learn more about each other.

It’s also a creative way to save some money by pooling resources. That’s a bigg idea!

What have you shared with your friends?

Please share that with us by leaving a comment below, calling us at 888.455.BIGG or sending us an e-mail at bigginfo@biggsuccess.com.

We thank you so much for sharing some of your valuable time with us today!

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Recent research shows that, even before the recent decline in stocks and homes, the rich weren’t getting richer. Please join us next time when we discuss why.

Until then, here’s to your bigg success!

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Do You Make Your Friends Happy?

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Make 55 Percent More Money – Part 1

Written on February 11, 2009 by George Krueger & Mary-Lynn Foster in Money, Time Management

watch_time We recently did a couple of posts about project selection – how to choose the projects that are best for you. First, we talked about knowing if you should invest your money in a project. Then we integrated the value of our time into the project selection methods.

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Hear George & Mary-Lynn discuss today's topic on The Bigg Success Show! Click the purple player: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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Now we want to extend that concept. We hear a lot about the right mix of assets when it comes to investing in our retirement portfolios. But we don’t often think of the activities we perform – how we invest our time – as a mix of assets.

Investing time like a venture capitalist allocates money

We should because the things we do should add value to our lives or we shouldn’t do them. So we want to approach our investment of time like it’s a portfolio … specifically, a venture capitalist’s portfolio.

A venture capitalist invests in a bunch of companies. Then they see how they perform and make decisions. If a company is hitting its marks, they keep funding it. If not, they don’t. They are constantly allocating money to the companies that look like they will generate the greatest return.

We can use this as a model for how we invest our time.

Find your highest value mix of activities

We’ve come up with a four-step process to determine those activities which deserve more of our investment of time and those tasks that should get less. So we can make more money without investing more time.

Step 1: List all the activities you perform.

Step 2: Place a dollar value on each of those activities.
It’s relatively easy to figure out the value of activities that make you money, but what do you do with those tasks that don’t? You want to look at two scenarios:

How much would it cost to pay someone to do it for you?
How much could you make in that time?

For example, spring is about here. It will be time to get out the lawn mower. For the sake of simplification, we’ll ignore the cost of owning and maintaining a mower. Say you could find someone to mow your yard for $50. In that time, you could earn $75 after-taxes. Under these assumptions, mowing your own yard costs you $25.

Step 3: Rank your activities from high to low.

Step 4: Create a portfolio of activities that generate the highest return.
Just like a venture capitalist, you want to invest more time in those activities at the top of your list. You want to “fund” the winners (i.e. invest more time in them).

To find the time for those activities, look at the bottom of your list and find ways to eliminate or delegate those tasks. One by one, you’ll find more time to invest in your higher value activities.

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Limitations

Admittedly, there are limitations to this process. Some activities cannot be measured with money. Going back to our example about mowing the yard, you may really enjoy that task.

It also doesn’t account for the fact that you need some down time to recharge. This is definitely a quantitative, not a qualitative, process.

This was the set-up. Next time we’ll discuss an example so you see how powerful this process can be. You’ll see how to make 55 percent more money without investing any more time.

Thanks so much for stopping by our site today. Until next time, here’s to your bigg success!

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