Shop in the Free / Re-conomy:
Gain tremendous purchasing leverage
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Analyzing a single buying transaction...

In a ReUseIt community posting a couple of days ago, I mentioned purchasing an unused hand blender at a yard sale for $1.50.  Today was day 3 using the "new" blender to make our morning smoothies.  It works perfectly.  It does exactly what needs to be done... chops up the frozen fruit, mixes the yogurt, ground flax, milk, etc. into an easy-to-eat, painless, pleasurable breakfast.

Cost $1.50...

We ALMOST replaced our old (3 year old...) Wolfgang Puck hand blender with a new one from the Canadian Shopping Channel.  Cost from the Shopping Channel, including taxes and shipping & handling... $80.90.

At first glance... savings:  $80.90-$1.50 = $79.40

But, wait a sec...  purchases have to be made in AFTER TAX dollars.  So, it makes sense to figure out how much you'd have to EARN in order to have that $79.40 to spend.  Assuming an income tax rate of 30%, that $79.40 becomes $79.40 * 1.3 = $103.22.  If you earn $25/hour, you'd have to work more than 4 hours in order to have that new Wolfgang Puck blender to do EXACTLY the same job as that $1.50 garage sale item does.  That's the RECONOMY working for you!

But, on the FREECONOMY (ReUseIt / FullCircles / Freecycle), you just might find a free hand blender.  In this case, the savings are $80.90 * 1.3 = $105.16.

Either way, thinking a little about shopping alternatives offers us HUGE advantages and huge spending leverage.