Join the Club. Suppose your sink gets clogged. What to do? You figure it out yourself or look for help. Online or in person. DIY or get help. What happens when a rental tool costs more than buying new? You might as well buy, use it and sell. A plumber can cost you a lot, but if you do it yourself, it could take too much time or not get fixed. So much in life is about time, money and know-how. One solution is to form a Plumbing Club, a loose collection of friends with know-how and tools.
Think of all the tools you keep because you need them sometimes. A sewing machine. A trailer. A garage full of tools. A kitchen full of gadgets. That’s fine if you have storage space. Or if the tool doesn’t cost that much. You’re running a pickup truck to get to work, but how often do you use it to deliver a load? The fact is, you could use a truck once in while. But the high cost of having it means you have no money left to do anything. There’s also the bigger picture, impact on the planet.
What you want is access to tools you need to use sometimes. Think about it. You borrow a tablesaw from a friend. You use it, throw a new blade on if it needs it, return it. And later return the favour. Because that’s what friends do. Oh, and in that you also described what you were doing and got advice or help. There you go, you formed a friends & family Tools Club.
When you buy something, you want the highest-quality one. With all the options. A ladder that is light, but also strong & sturdy. But it costs too much. You won’t use it that often. It’s only worth it if you think long-term, but you just don’t have the cash right now. A sewing machine, but with automated embroidery options, 160 stitch patterns built in. A rake that won’t break in a year.
What you really want is access to tools. You need to slash life expenses. A Tools Club can be formed around anything you need sometimes that costs too much to buy. A trailer. A set of plumbing tools. A $2000 embroidery sewing machine that you want to use sometimes to make logos on T-shirts and hats for your business or fundraiser. A ladder tall enough to get on your roof.
Five friends pay 1/5th the price. $2000 new, yours to use for $400.
A loose club of friends can solve a lot of problems. The easiest thing it to keep a notebook with the machine, tool or tool kit. Record who paid what, keep receipts and warranties. Add hours of use, notes about problems (‘the darning needle tends to stick’), here’s the $5 I owe you, whatever you want. Maybe you bought in just to try it. You decide it’s not for you. Sell your 1/5th share to someone who wants in. Or the 4 remaining friends can buy you out at a low cost per person (e.g. $400/4). Or just realize that during the time you used it, you got your $400 value. Compare to the cost of renting, buying, or hiring someone and include the time and money you would have spent doing all that running around. It paid for itself. Include the fact that friends are worth far more than things.
* Join a Club to slash life expenses, get access to tools you use sometimes, get help and advice from friends. Join to use tools, trucks or tractors, to buy food or supplies bulk, to work with others to start stores and businesses. We all value our time. We all want good prices for great quality. You can even join a Save the Planet Club formed by caring Canadians focused on a fair and sustainable future.
Save money, slash life expenses. Suppose five friends want to split a pizza. If it costs $20, you chip in $4 each and divide it 5 ways. If someone wants just a small slice, you naturally compensate. They chip in $2, and someone hungrier chips in $6 to get more. You make deals on the fly so it all adds up and works. It’s the same deal with a sewing embroidery machine. One person just wants to try it. Another person needs to make logos for their fundraiser T-shirts. But unlike a pizza, the sewing machine may be used over 10 years. You forget who paid what and why. That person who just wanted to try it may become the main user. The logo-maker may move away. What you need is a notebook that travels with the machine to keep track of who paid what. A Plumbing Tools Kit needs a list of what’s in it.
This hardly matters with a ladder. You use it, it sits at your house a while, then someone else uses it and it sits there. It’s not hard to make arrangements. The same goes for a trailer. But suppose the “tool” is a pickup truck you use once in a while. Now you can see the need for better notes.
We know you don’t like math, so we made it easy. Your personal cost, what you pay for your slice of the pizza pie, is small c. The total cost of the pizza is large C. Five friends could split the pizza 5 ways, but 4 could, or 3, so call the number of friends N. The cost $20 divided by 5 is $20/5 or $4. The cost C divided by N friends is C/N. Even if someone paid less and another person paid more, the money you chip in still has to add up to $20. We can all handle basic division and addition, usually without a calculator. And it’s also easy to make (and remember!) a deal with one other person.
What you pay in, your fraction c/C, is also your percent share, 100 c/C. That may equal the amount you ate, or the time you use the machine, or it may not. Your fractional use is your personal use u divided by the total use U. This could be weekly, monthly or yearly. Your fractional use u/U (or the percent 100 u/U) may matter to pay your fair share of running expenses. It may matter if you want to build a Repair & Replace fund. That can go in a zippered bag with a combination lock.
Perhaps someone paid extra to make sure the machine got bought to begin with. Maybe someone paid less at the start, having little money but a distinct need (and a hand up is fair, especially for tools needed to make a living), and they gradually pay in over time to increase their share s = c/C. So for many reasons a notebook and a little math is needed to keep track of things. When the machine goes from one person to another, that’s the time to check and sign off on the notes and condition of the machine. You don’t need to be so formal with two people, but you may need to be with five. A notebook or diary that travels with the machine makes that simple. Or use email.
The same goes for a Save the Planet Club. You can solve all the world’s problems at a kitchen party. But you won’t get anywhere if you don’t turn that talk into tangibles. Actual notes and plans. Documents and projects. Strategies – with all those components that seemed so obvious last night – turned into topic headings, slogans and strategy sketches. How-to ideas from a welding conversation, turned into a list of things to buy, a place to work, and a business plan to get to market. A Help Club, turned into a tangible HoursBank. Help someone in need, receive help later in life. A venture with friends, that could be a business. Prevent conflict by recording VentureHours. Clubs can do a lot.
