Spare Key recently decided on new people for leadership roles, which we call czar positions. Last year, I was the Sharing Czar and I was asked to continue in this role. My main job is to find opportunities for us to share life in creative ways. This past year that has taken the form of hosting a wedding shower for Rob and Abbey, a total of five group gifts, and a four-day vacation together, among other things.

All of this sharing meant a lot of money changed hands. According to our current budget, we have shared over $1,700 in expenses in just 2016. We did this in a variety of ways, but we found two that are my favorite! Introducing Splitwise and Splitzee.

In June, six of us took a vacation to Colorado to "crash" Rob and Abbey's honeymoon and meet up with our friends Josh and Alyssa who live there. (Disclaimer - we didn't crash anything, we just happened to go at the same time so we got to hang out with them in the mountains one weekend.) This involved a rental car, a pretty sweet Air BnB in the mountains, and sharing gas expenses. Now we could have just written checks to the person who paid for everything, but with a total of 10 people sharing the cabin for different lengths of time, that sounded like a logistical nightmare. That's where Splitwise saved us! We created a group on Splitwise that allowed us to split up the expenses in a fair way to reflect when each person stayed at the cabin. Then when we rented the car, we were able to just post that expense on Splitwise. This saved us so much time and hassle because Splitwise divided up the expenses for us.

As I mentioned before, Spare Key has gotten into giving group gifts. Why don't more people do this? We were able to be so much more generous than ever before through group gifting. Our group gifts included some awesome camping gear for Rob and Abbey's wedding shower, a beautiful leather bag filled with office goodies for Tessa's graduation, a comfy rocker for the Cowen's when sweet Autumn was born, and a group care package for Abbey when lots of her things were stolen with her car. At first, we just had one person pay for the gift then everyone gave the same amount to that person. We quickly realized with all the gifts we were giving this wasn't sustainable. It also wasn't fair because one person might want to give a different amount than someone else. That is where Splitzee came into play. This wonderful tool allows you to create a "fund" for whatever you want and whoever wants to participate can give however much they like to the fund. That's how we ended up doing the group gifts and it worked like a dream. You can connect it to your Paypal account and just give the amount you are comfortable with super easily. For most of our gifts, we put a deadline on it and then used whatever funds we collected to determine what gift(s) to purchase.

All of this to say - sharing money doesn't have to be difficult. With tools like these two (and I'm sure there are many more), sharing is easy. Group gifting is quickly becoming one of my favorite things.

Our mission statement says: 

Spare Key is a neighborhood of adventurers committed to fostering practical expressions of the spiritual, personal and communal goals of its members through the act of sharing in hopes of leaving the world better than we found it. 
 

Today I want to focus on the "sharing" part. Through sharing, we help each other toward our goals, and we believe we can change our corner of the world for the better.

I've tried to compile a list of things we have shared so far as a community. The list is remarkable long considering how short a time we have been at it. (Spare Keyers, help me out in the comments section and add the items I'm forgetting.) There are stories behind every item on this list, which perhaps we can elucidate in future posts. 

Some of the items on this list are held independently, and some we purchased together as a community. I have mostly listed material items, and I didn't even try to cover the more important stuff that we share as a community - things like emotional support, happiness, and camaraderie. 

 













lawn mowers
sewing machine
wii U
a side of beef
laundry facilities
2 CSA shares
pet watching
nerf guns
garden work
yard work
camping stuff
freezer space
storage space
books
skill-sharing workshops (pilates, sewing, etc)
bike tools
other tools (tool library; drills, power washers)
brewing equipment
food
talent, time, and energy spent cooking.
musical ability (vocal, instrumental)
space (porches, yards, houses)
retreat expenses
holiday gift exchanges
cell phone plans

My mom used to call me her "domestic diva." I guess that was a fitting nickname. I love taking an ordinary space and filling it with beautiful decor to make it feel like home. I enjoy inviting people to my house and serving them fun desserts. I adore receiving kitchen gadgets as gifts, but mostly I just like to create pretty things.

My finished project