Guest blogger – Mr. GivingBean on Acquiring home improvement tools

Acquiring home improvement tools – an idea for neighborhood non-proprietary minded male friends

“Wow, so many tools and so little money to them”. Yes there are great cards that help with cash back on purchases at Home Depot and low interest rates but do I really want to more tools that fill up my garage? Well yes and no.

Having international friends now living in the USA who have not been raised in the American culture of home improvement and obsessiveness about tools to address every possible home maintenance need, I am amazed when I look in their garages. They are completely devoid of home maintenance and improvement tools and such. And although I don’t quite see how they can survive in suburbia without the essential hedge trimmer and workbench of tools, It makes me realize that there must be a better way than to keep acquiring more tools that fill up my garage.

They have relatively no tools, and are perfectly happy to keep it that way. Yes, you might say “just call a plumber or electrician or handyman”, but we know that it is cost of labor, not the cost of tools that keeps the do-it-your-selfer engaged in such activities. In fact, for many, it is the cost of labor that helps one justify the expense of more expensive labor saving tools and devices at Home Depot.

We all have close neighborhood friends who all struggle with the issue of acquiring 1-time-use tools and storing them for a lifetime – right? Well, what to do?

I’ve decided that if we are all in agreement, to start an inventory list of tools that we can publish to each other, it would reduce our number of trips to Home Depot, save gas, time and the probability for excessive tool acquisitions. I’m going to propose this to my friends and see what they think. We’ll all have to be ok with allowing others to borrow them and there needs to be some ground rules of course. I’ll let you know what happens and then start building an inventory list. Any thoughts on this?