Peer-to-Peer Rentals--Own Less Stuff, Make Cash With What You Do Own

Imagine you live in a neighborhood of gardeners, each of whom owns a rototiller they use once or twice a year. Seems wasteful, doesn't it? A new movement via the Internet, peer-to-peer rentals, is a possible answer to this waste.

Peer-to-peer rentals allows you to rent out rentable stuff in your household that you don't use every day, from circular saws to party supplies, cars to designer purses. Several sites function as the middlemen to make the transaction as failproof and risk-controlled as possible.

One such service, Zilok, began in Europe but has recently spread to the U.S.