I recently got back from backpacking around Peru and Ecuador. Before the trip I looked at buying a telephoto lense to capture closeups of the animals I expected to see on the Galapagos Islands. The lense I wanted was priced at about $800 locally and $600 on the internet.

However, I was able to find a LendLister with a zoom lense that would do the trick. It made all the difference in the world in terms of my photos. See the results below. I gave him an extra compact flash card as a thanks, got the photos I wanted and saved at least $600. Thanks Makana!

A member contacted me with this story about how much they were able to save through LendList, and how this borrowing arrangement was beneficial for both the borrower and the lender.

Dave was going snowboarding more and more regularly but didn’t own a board. Renting was getting expensive. He found a good deal on snowboard boots because it’s hard to borrow or rent well fitting clean boots. He looked at buying a board, and would have had to spend about $550 for a board and bindings of the right size and performance level.

He then took a look at LendList. He found a friend of a friend with a board long and wide enough for his 6′2″, 200 lbs. frame.

So now he borrows his snowboard whenever he goes to ride. He gets the board waxed each time, and gets the edges tuned when needed, which is still far cheaper than renting, and leaves the lender with a board that’s always in top condition.

The two acquaintances aren’t the same ability so there is no issue with borrowing the board and not inviting the person to ride, since they wouldn’t ride together anyway. Some time it might happen that they want to both go riding on the same day, but Dave has found two others with similar sized boards he can borrow if that occurs.

LendList.org means big savings for the borrower, and in this case the lender too!