Five things your neighbours already own, so you don't have to buy them

Walk down any HDB corridor and the same story repeats behind every door. There is a drill in the storeroom that comes out twice a year. There is a ladder waiting for the next round of festive cleaning. There is a hand trolley that earned its keep during one move and has been parked since.

Multiply that by every flat on the floor and you get the odd maths of modern living: hundreds of households each owning the same rarely used items, each item gathering dust between uses. Renting from a neighbour instead of buying fixes this in the simplest possible way. The drill gets used, you get your wall mounted, and nobody's storeroom gets fuller.

So before you buy for a one-off job, check whether a neighbour has it. On SharedOut, the five most common rentals in HDB estates are drills and toolkits, step ladders, hand trolleys, camping gear, and baby equipment such as strollers and cots.

Each of these is exactly the kind of thing you need for a weekend, not for a lifetime. And each is exactly the kind of thing your neighbour with an idle cupboard would rather see used than stored.