OurSwaps.com Blog

OK, so despite what the title of this blog post may suggest, I actually love Christmas; the eating, the drinking, more drinking, the mince pies….  But I always get that ‘elephant in the room’ feeling around the festive period, as everyone works so hard to perpetuate the myth that anything, and everything, related to Christmas is just plain fab.

Well it’s not.

Christmas inspires the same feelings in most people that any other family gathering does; the build up is so intense that you’re exhausted by the time the event actually comes round, the fact that you have to spend time catching up with Auntie Barbara and Uncle John, whose lives you actually have absolutely no interest in, the inherent ability of every family to turn any social engagement into a fee-for-all form of group therapy… problems shared that merely result in gossip.

And don’t get me started on the crap presents; you feel like screaming “hello?!  Have you actually met me??  Do I look like the type of person who uses scented drawer liners, wears hideously clashing socks and is incapable of purchasing my own underwear??”

If you answered yes to any of the above then check out our new site: www.mycrapchristmas.com
It’s where people like us can go and vent our spleen… and raise a festive glass to all things crappy this Christmas.  What’s not to love?

Now as hard as it is for a self-confessed swapaholic to admit… I’ve been out-swapped!  I thought I knew it all… the best way to barter my wardrobe unwearables into designer clobber?  It’s all about the negotiations, layering your offer always makes it more appealing (basically apply the rules of dressing to swapping!).  How to get rid of my unwanted couch (minus armrests) whilst at the same time acquiring a set of dining chairs?  It’s all about the delivery; offer to do the grunt work.

Now I’m not here to give all of my secrets away, what I’m doing is venting about the fact that I have been royally out-swapped, and by a friend no less!  I’ve had my eye on a YSL cocktail dress that was up for swap and happened to mention it to the girl who sits beside me at work (yes, you know who you are!).  As I carefully began planning my offer (start low, wait for response, add more) around a few choice items in my wardrobe, she not only pipped me to the post with the offer, she outright sabotaged me.

How, I hear you cry?  Well, she took a look at everything the swapper had on offer, and everything they were looking for.  She soon realised that while the swapper was looking for a leather bag in exchange for the dress, she was also on the hunt for an ironing board and a baby carrier in exchange for other items she had listed.  The solution?  Offer her an ironing board and baby carrier for the dress.  Swap completed.  The moral of the story?  Investigate your target swapper; find out more and use it to your advantage.

Venting aside, I’ve got to give her credit, as what she achieved in this instance can only be described as ‘swap magic’.

This season at OurSwaps HQ, we’re very impressed by Buy Nothing Christmas and Xmas Resistance, two very different campaigns with similar intentions.

Although I’m not particularly well-versed in the practices and beliefs of the Canadian Mennonite community, I think the idea of pausing amidst the consumer craziness and reflecting on the true meaning of giving is really valuable.

I can’t be alone in feeling a sense of resentment that I’m obliged to run around the city buying stuff I know people don’t really want or need simply because it’s a public holiday. I’m not religious, so marking this day has no real meaning for me. Like most of my peers, for me Christmas is a festival of excess consumption – eating my own body weight in turkey, drinking far too much, enduring hour upon hour of rubbish television and the company of people I don’t usually spend prolonged periods of time with (love you mum!)

Year after year, we see reports of families finding it hard to cope, running up huge credit card debts to finance the purchase of expensive gifts and seeing in the New Year with a severe fiscal hangover. People feel an enormous pressure to shop beyond their means, squandering their hard-earned cash on items which are highly likely to end up in landfill within the next few years. Surely something has got to give!

I know a lot of people who’ve been hit hard by the recession already, and the financial forecasts seem to indicate that times are likely to remain tough for a good while to come. For this reason – amongst many others – it’s high time we re-evaluated our Christmas compulsive behavior. Why not try making a gift for your nearest and dearest this year? The reason “it’s the thought that counts” is such a cliché is because it’s true – people don’t need sweatshop made products to know that you love them.  Remember how happy your granny was when you gave her that dog-eared home-made Christmas card, covered in glitter and paint and your grubby six year old fingerprints?  It wasn’t (only) because she’d been at the sherry; it was because you’d put in time and care into her gift.

I’m not being stingy, but I’d rather put my energy and money where it counts. Instead of buying presents that your loved ones may find hard to reciprocate or have little need for, why not make them something they’d like?  Or if your craft skills haven’t developed much beyond six year old level, why not opt to make a donation on someone’s behalf through a charity like Kiva?

It’s going to make more of a true, meaningful difference to someone’s life than any number of bath salts and socks. You might have to check with a Mennonite, but I’m pretty sure that was the whole point of Christmas, once upon a time….

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(Shameless plug: of course, when you do inevitably end up receiving  the traditional nylon-chenille mix jumper from the aunt you haven’t seen since you were twelve years old and obsessed with the colour cerise, please do consider swapping it on OurSwaps – one man’s Christmas trash is another man’s New Year treasure…)

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I am lucky enough to work for a rather unique innovation company. One of the many perks is that once a week we have a 5 minute angel come to our desk and give us a 5 minute back massage. This is undoubtedly and perhaps tragically the best 5 minutes of my week. Ironically I usually spend the last 90 seconds of my massage plotting ways to extend it by a minute or two.
In a desperate attempt to increase my massage time I asked Kylie (the angel in question) what she would be willing to trade for a good half hour massage.  Jokingly she replied a baby-sitter would be priceless for the following evening. As it turns out I love kids and was free as a bird for the next night. The deal was struck, a win-win situation all round!
This got me thinking about what else I may have to offer, and what I can get for it. And so we have the beginnings of a barter economy. With the ever increasing networks we build online we have more direct access to more people than ever before. This means that our personal contact list has expanded almost exponentially when you begin to include our 2nd and 3rd degree connections. I believe that the saying “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know” still rings true today. If individuals can start to harness the power of multiple connections perhaps we really could cut out the middle man?

Online swap and barter sites have quickly seen this gap in the market and have adjusted to it by giving users more control. You can now swap anything for anything and can also negotiate and barter to clinch the deal. So if you need your tax return filled in but would rather watch paint dry than do it yourself, you could offer to swap your baking abilities and maybe even throw in a book collection you have been meaning to give away. The possibilities are as varied as your tastes, interests and skills.

Is this the beginning of a cash free society? Well, maybe not, but it could just free you up to do things a little bit differently…and maybe a little bit better.

The funniest thing happened last weekend. I was sauntering down my street, in my middle-of-the-road neighborhood, when a shiny new desktop scanner caught my eye. And no, it wasn’t in a shop window- it was sitting right there on the pavement with a note attached:

“Please take. Scanner is in perfect working order, just can’t be bothered to work out how to sync with new powerbook.”

After looking around for the candid camera, I realized that no, this wasn’t a joke. There are so many things wrong with this picture… while I appreciate the neighbourly generosity, it seems symptomatic of a world in which we consume and discard tons of stuff without much – if any – thought of the impact on our planet.

This isn’t a one off, either. Someone seems to be moving house or spring-cleaning on my street every week. As I stumble to the bus stop, bleary eyed on Monday mornings, I find myself tripping over furniture, kitchenware, pc monitors and all sorts of random bits and pieces.

What I find remarkable about this is the fact that my neighbours (in an area where the second largest share of votes went to the Green Party at the last election), have no qualms about chucking out expensive things with plenty of life left in them. Do people realize they end up in landfill? Recent figures indicate that up to 60% of everything that ends up in the dump could have been recycled – and It’s taking up a lot of space on our planet.

Why is it that while we’ll vote green, recycle our rubbish, spend over-the-odds on organic veggies and tut with disapproval at people who litter the streets, we switch off our green conscience when it comes to our own back yard?

The old ‘one man’s trash is another man’s treasure’ really holds true; there’s no stigma attached to grabbing some pre-loved furniture from the street, and nor should there be. But instead of shoving a sofa that’s got plenty of life left in it onto the street, hoping that someone else will pick it up or the council will dump it for you, why not be a little more proactive?

Swap it, and get something back, or give it to someone who might call it a treasure. You can even donate it to charity – whatever you do, just try to consider the consequences of your consumption. It’s really not that hard to do, is it?

…and while you’re here, why not click through to ourswaps.com to swap something.  You never know, you might get something cool in return…..

We’re over the moon with the response we’ve had to Buy Nothing Day.  Lots of people took the time to visit OurSwaps, with loads of new sign ups and heaps of new things being added to the site every day.

When we started OurSwaps, it was for the simple fact that we wanted to make swapping easy and fun.  And now, 6 months since we launched, even we’ve been surprised by how the concept of swapping has taken hold.  Looking back now, it makes perfect sense – we’ve become more and more aware of our impact on the environment as consumers, with recycling reaching the crucial tipping point and most of us looking for ways to avoid waste.

We’re all guilty of having more than we need, of hanging onto things for ‘that bit too long’ and basically spending a lifetime hoarding (until the odd spring clean when we go a bit mad and clear out some of what’s hidden under the bed!)  Well I, for one, hate seeing things go to waste… and the fact that my desire for things regularly outweighs my bank balance is what led me right here.

What’s more- there’s nothing like a global economic crisis to get everyone thinking about how to cut back on spend, but none of us want to give up on treats (well I don’t anyway- what would I have left?!).

I could go on about this subject for ages, it’s one of my passions (hence why I’m here!), but I’ll spare you the pain.  As a good friend of mine put it ‘swapping’s like getting something for nothing when you think about it’, and that phrase struck a real chord with me, as that’s what sets swapping apart from shopping; the fact that money doesn’t have to change hands in order for you to get something you really want.  Other than winning the lottery, I can’t think of another way of reaching the same high.

Buy nothing, get something. Swap, don’t shop. The revolution is here.