Keeping one’s head above water in these economically difficult times is not easy for anybody, and many people in the province of Malaga are finding creative means to face the economic slowdown. One of them is to share. This option not only saves money for all but promotes companionship and a sense of solidarity as well.

The possibilities of sharing are numerous, ranging from the use of a single car for two people and the sharing of garage space to the use of one office for two people, the sharing of living space, hotel rooms, travel costs, wifi connection, mortgage repayments and a host of other costs that we normally pay individually. Over recent months, reduced incomes at all levels have encouraged people to think of how they might reach the end of the month without going into the red, and one of the tools being used is the Internet, where many web sites offer information on cost sharing.

Finding somebody to share with is thus as easy as clicking on the right website, and there are dozens of them available. Or one can simply place an advertisement in a classified ads site and wait for the phone to ring. We spoke to eight people in Malaga who have decided to share, and this is what they had to say.

Sharing a car - Leticia Hidalgo and María José Medicis: “We both pay toll and fuel costs”

Both of them live in Malaga and work in Estepona, and they do it at the same times of the day. This happens to be pure coincidence, but as soon as they realised it, they decided to take advantage of it. Both Leticia Hidalgo and María José Medicis work in the civil service, and when the chance came to share travelling costs to and from Estepona, neither hesitated. Sharing a car was the answer, and it had the additional advantage of reducing carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere. They have been sharing travelling expenses for the past six years.

In their case, as it happens, the reason for cost-saving has not been the recession. “The main reason we joined forces was to have the chance to rest while driving, and have a better quality of life,” says Leticia. But they also agree that cost had a lot to do with their decision. “The one who drives the car on any particular day pays for fuel and toll costs, and we divide other costs at the end of each month. It is then one really notices the difference,” she adds.

Although cost is a factor with them, they insist it is not the most important. “Comfort is more important for us. Not having to drive on that busy road every day is a great relief for both of us, and we arrive home fresh and ready to face the rest of the day,” says Leticia. They remind us that they still have two free seats in the car for whoever might like to join them from their starting point in Guadalmar.

They have placed advertisements on various Internet sites as a means of finding extra passengers. The Internet has replaced hitch-hiking on the roads these days: now, one uses one’s thumb to click on the keyboard instead of raising it on the roadside. Malaga University has a web site aimed especially at people who wish to share, offering a database of approximately 40 students and university teachers who are looking for travelling companions.

According to the Compartir company, which operates a network of 69 municipalities and local entities and companies offering this type of service on the Internet, tells us that in 2007, more than 20,000 Spaniards shared cars with other users. Thanks to this, a total of 7,000 vehicles were taken off the roads and almost 1,500 euros per person was saved, as well as the subsequent reduction in carbon dioxide emissions, which is equivalent to the amount generated by more than three thousand homes in a year.

Sharing office space - Marta González and Pilar Fernández: “This means we both pay only 160 euros”

Contrary to the European practice of doing something without the need to name it, the Americans have a special gift for naming social phenomena that are new to them, and they call this one ‘co-working.’ The philosophy is elementary: one shares the costs of getting to and from work with one’s co-workers or neighbours, and that means driving costs, parking costs, fuel and toll costs and office costs. But saving money is not the only benefit, they assure us. Fighting loneliness is just as important for many people who work for themselves on their own. Marta González and Pilar Fernández are partners in a Malaga company called Stampate!, and they decided to carry sharing a step further a few months ago. “Our offices are big, and we had a lot of unused space on the first floor, so we decided to rent,” says Marta.

They placed an advertisement on the Internet and received many replies. They now share office space with a young computer programmer, who has her own table, chair and Internet connection, and they share a reception room and coffee pot, all for 160 euros a month each.

“We have even more space for others to join us, and it all saves a lot of much-needed money all around,” says Leticia. “Besides the saving, co-working enables us all to work separately but together, exchanging resources, opportunities, providers and sometimes clients,” she adds.

Sharing the mortgage - Valentín Coaquira: “It was the only way I could pay it”

Last summer, personal and economic circumstances forced Bolivian immigrant Valentín Coaquira to attempt to buy his own house. But this turned out to be impossible on his low weekly wage. All the banks he spoke to showed no interest in lending to him, so he decided on another option. That was to share mortgage payments with his brother. “I simply could not do it on my own, because of the high mortgage payments every month, so we joined forces to buy a house together,” he says. Even though each salary was insufficient on its own, their combined income allowed them take out a bank loan.

Thanks to this financial association, Valentín now owns an apartment on Avenida Bonaire, for which he pays half the thousand euros a month it costs in mortgage payments. “I could not have paid the full amount on my salary, but can easily pay half it,” he says. He advises others in the same situation to do the same.

Many other immigrant families are, in fact, in the same situation as Valentín, or as his was before sharing the mortgage. They tend to live in cramped spaces with little option of getting out, the only practical way being to share mortgage payments. Financial institutions in the province tell us that more and more immigrants are being won over to this practice in recent months.

A recent study carried out by the Tecnocasa real estate company, which specialises in the second-hand home market, concludes that approximately 30 per cent of new mortgages being granted by financial institutions these days are signed by three or more people.

Sharing a garage - Laura González: “There are many unused parking spaces”

Parking in large cities like Malaga is always a problem, especially if one lives in an highly populated barrio with many car owners. This pushes the price of covered parking spaces up, in many case higher than most ordinary people can afford. For this reason, many car owners in the city are now sharing the cost of renting garage space.

Laura González is one of them. She placed an advertisement on the Internet last September seeking somebody with whom she could share the cost of a garage for her car in the city centre. “I work from nine in the morning to two in the afternoon, so that somebody else who works later in the day could also use the same parking space,” she says. Nobody has called her so far, she tells us, but she is not giving up all hope. “It seems to me like the best solution to a problem shared by many car owners, but there is not the tradition of such sharing of resources here, as there is in places like Madrid and Barcelona,” she adds.

Sharing an apartment - Sonia Guzmán: “I share my house to pay my bills”

The high cost of mortgage re-payments for new home owners forces many of them to rent out unused rooms as a means of additional income. Sonia Guzmán decided to do so six months ago, and so far, everything is going as she had planned.

She acquired a small apartment a year ago with two bedrooms. But she lives alone, and was finding it difficult to meet the mortgage payments every month, so on the suggestion of friends, she decided to rent the extra room. That was how she met Daniela, who happened to be looking for such a room at the same time in the same area. They now share the mortgage payments. “I charge her 280 euros a month, which, although it is not much, helps enormously,” says this 32-year-old secretary. It is worthwhile, she says, searching in the Spanish language schools for tenants, because they pay between 18 and 20 euros a day in exchange for full board and cleaning.

Interchanging houses while travelling - Rafael Aguilar: “I can travel cheaper because I don’t pay hotel costs”

As a result of the Internet, it is now possible to travel the entire world without incurring any costs above air tickets and food. The answer is in the many thousands of people who subscribe to Internet web sites offering home interchange programmes. The idea is very simple: one normally leaves a house empty when one travels, and it is very likely that some home owner at the other end of one’s trip who would like to travel at the same time to where one left from.

Rafael González, 29 years old, has visited Latvia and Germany on home exchange agreements, and is very happy with the results. “One only has to confide in people. I had the good luck to have decent people in my house, and excellent houses to stay in. Otherwise I would not have been able to travel,” he says.