Borrow Things

It’s only Rock ‘n Roll by the Rolling Stone (music borrowed from the library)

With today’s economy it is wised to borrow things to save money, but one thing that you borrow that wouldn’t save you money, but actually cost you more is to borrow money, unless you’re borrowing it from your family without interest and no due date as when you can pay back.  It is true that borrowing money can help you do things that you otherwise couldn’t do, but this can get you into trouble, especially if you’ve to borrow to buy your everyday necessity such as your grocery, or a bit more luxury lifestyle in my book is eating out, and some people have this mentality of why use your own money to buy things when you can use other people’s money.  This can get you in trouble if all you can pay is the minimum payment and the accrued interest just keep piling up.  My rule of thumb is to only borrow money to buy big items that I view as an investment such as a car or a house.

It is also a good idea to save money by borrowing things that you only need infrequently, but not a good idea if it is going to cost the loaner more money.  I guess I learned this from experience, I used to borrow my dad’s garden tools several years back since I didn’t use it very often back then, and didn’t want to pay money to buy it, his were old and he didn’t seem to mind as long as I take good care of them.  I guess sometimes I kept it too long, or he had his eyes on a new one, and he ended up buying new ones.  This happened several times, so I stopped borrowing things from him.  Although I’m thinking about borrowing his step ladder so I can remove the bird’s nests on the columns of my front porch, but I’m afraid that he might end up giving it to me.

The one lifestyle changes that I made and very happy is to start borrowing things from the library, this is great because we’re helping the environment by reusing instead of consuming.  We used to visit Barnes and Noble book store once in a while for Lee to buy her books, and even then it was very expensive, and since she could only pick one, her choice was very limited, so she ended up only buying the one that she really liked.  This has all changed since my friend told me about borrowing books from the library, and Tuesday is our library day since they open late.  Lee now borrows as many as 15-20 books, DVD movies, and I also borrow books and music CD.  Lee is now reading books that I’d never thought of buying for her, and she is learning so much more about other cultures as well, and the best part is that it’s free.  Isn’t this how it’s supposed to be, the best thing in life is free? I know it is for me.

I think some people take the idea of borrowing too far and it becomes stealing.  I heard on the radio a while back that one caller called in and said that she borrowed her children school pictures by scanning them into her computer, some even had watermark printed in the background, “PROOF“, which only proves that you’re stealing.