The Simple Dollar blog today has a
guest post by the author of 'Your Money or Your Life'. Really good stuff on living, needs, and finances.
At the Make Fair this year there was a start up for a website to do sharing/loaning. I forget the name right now. It is of course San Francisco mostly so far, but I really like the idea. I'll loan you my sewing machine for a day, and that guy will loan me his cherry picker, and... I do wonder how broken/repairs work in those kinds of situations (whereas in shared housing situations, I'd set up a fund everyone pitches in to).
I also look at this sort of thing as financial decluttering... cutting back to what matters/what fits/what's right now.