I want you to take a moment to think about all the furniture and other paraphernalia that you’ve purchased for your children to keep them healthy and happy over the years. I’ll bet you’ve paid out an absolute fortune. I now want you to imagine that you were able to rent these items. Just imagine how much money you would have saved and how much smaller your impact would have been on the environment. Thanks to a start-up called Yearn Baby and Kids, you now have the opportunity to do just that: Rent big ticket items instead of buy them.
I have signed up to Y’earn as I can see it’s potential. Most parents buy big items such as changing units, highchairs and buggies etc. Thing is, kids grow so quickly you may only get six months or at best, a year’s worth of use out of them before your children have outgrown them.
If I think about my own family, these items were stored in the garage between the arrival of our first and second children. Had Y’earn been around when the kids were younger, we could have rented out these items and earned a passive income from them.
How does Y’earn Baby and Kids work?
I’ve possibly hit you with quite a bit of information in one go, so let me explain how Y’earn works. Think of it as an online community made up of two distinct groups of people Yearners and Earners.
Yearners are people who are looking to rent items. Earners are people with items they wish to rent out.
Yearners rent ‘bundles’ rather than individual items, with the option to remove items from the bundle (i.e nursery bundles, out and about, feeding and so on). Rental agreements can be short term or long term.
Conversely, Earners can list the items they have available. I won’t go into all the details in this blog post, but Earners pay a small monthly fee to be a part of the Y’earn club. A percentage of the rental fee will also go towards paying local co-ordinators who clean, deliver and drop off items (all the details are on the Y’earn website).
The role of co-ordinators and where Y’earn presently operates
As I have mentioned co-ordinators, I will say a few words about them as they have an important role to play, especially during the Coronavirus pandemic. Co-ordinators are individuals who live locally to the Yearner or Earner.
They have responsibility for cleaning any rented items. They are also responsible for dropping off and collecting items from Yeaner’s at the beginning and end of a rental period. They offer convenience to the Y’earn community and earn a side hustle around the school run. Visit the site if this interests you.
So where is Y’earn Baby and Kids presently operating? At the time of writing, the Y’earn service is available in London and some surrounding boroughs with a plan to roll it out to other areas based on demand (so there’s an incentive for people outside the capital to sign up).
Supporting the planet and those in need
As you can appreciate, renting items like this reduces demand on the Earth’s resources. On top of this, Y’earn plats a tree for every member individual who signs up to the service.
Earners are also free to donate their items to a charity at the end of a rental period of they wish. Y’earn has partnered with Great Ormond Street Hospital, Baby Basics and the Child Rescue Coalition to donate time, money and goods as a community.
Liabilities as a Yearner and Earner
As you can appreciate, you do have certain responsibilities as both a Yearner or Earner. They’re mostly common sense. Acceptable wear and tear of rented items comes as part of the package, but if an item is badly damaged the Y’earner would be liable to reimburse the owner. I would, however, encourage Yearners and Earners to take a good look at the Y’earn Baby and Kids website and familiarise themselves with the ground rules.
Y’earn’s background
You may be wondering how Y’earn came into existence. It was the brainchild of the company founder who moved home three times to three different cities in as many years. Furniture bought for one property didn’t suit the next one. There were issues with storage facilities, items getting lost and so on.
From this mess, the idea for Y’earn was born! Now parents can benefit by either renting or hiring out items they don’t need.
Why not sign up?
Signing up to Y’earn is very easy. It takes just a couple of moments and is free. You have nothing to lose so give it a go today.
