A Once-In-Lifetime Up-Trading Journey: From Just Having A Paper Clip to Being A House Owner

TrendingJune 13, 2023

The ‘red paperclip’ and Kyle MacDonald’s up-trading journey towards realizing his dream of owning his own house has inspired many others across the world to follow his path. The reason why his profile gained traction is for this very unique reason: Mr. Kyle did not purchase his house—it was traded off for a role in a movie called ‘Donna in Demand.’

He started with something as tiny and negligible as a red-colored paperclip that he found lying around his house one very ordinary day. Demi Skipper, a woman in her twenties at the time, working as a product manager for an online restaurant reservation company, also followed his path.

The Beginning of It All

It all started one fine day when then unemployed Kyle MacDonald sat and looked around at the house that his girlfriend was paying the rent for, and the desire for financial contribution overtook his sense. He wanted his own house but had no means to get one.

That is when this idea struck him to use ignorable things around him to get hold of better things. The idea randomly occurred to him that if he could use things currently in his ownership and trade them with others for something better, maybe one day he’ll be able to trade something valuable for a house.

That One Red Paperclip

While Kyle was contemplating his up-trading project and how it could work out, his eyes landed on this red paperclip in front of him. He thought, what if he could trade it for something bigger and better until he could fulfill his plan? So that’s what he attempted to do; he tried his luck at Craigslist, a website that allows for buying and selling.

He put up the red paper clip he found at his house with a proposition to have someone trade it for anything they have got, with a clear mention of what he eventually hopes to achieve with this up-trading project: ownership of a house.

Already onto Bigger and Better

What he had hoped to achieve had actually materialized. In July 2005, Kyle was able to trade off his red paper clip with a fish pen, for which he traveled all the way to Vancouver as per his commitment to travel to wherever he would have to execute the trade.

The trade came about as a result of a pair of girls from Vancouver offering him their fished-shaped pen in exchange for his paper clip. They took a picture to mark the deal, and Kyle was now the owner of a fish pen, something definitely better and bigger than what he set out with.

It’s Not Stopping Anytime Soon

The media attention started pouring in as the knowledge of his project to own a house by way of up-trading spread. Kyle intended to go all out with the barter game and was not going to stop anytime soon from the likes of it.

He went ahead and put up the fish-shaped pen for exchange; and guess who got lucky again? Kyle managed to receive another barter trade offer. This time it was a girl named Annie, who lived all across the way from Seattle, Washington. She offered him a bizarre-looking door knob in exchange for his pen, and the trade was struck.

Door Knob to a Camp Stove

Kyle was not going to stop here. He was seeking to exchange the door knob he got from Annie for something better. He just had to find someone who could use the door knob and then extract something out of them which would be useful to him.

On July 25, 2005, he traveled all the way to Amherst, Massachusetts, to achieve this purpose. A certain Shaun, who resided there, had made him a decent deal. He offered Kyle a camp stove with spare fuel. This was already a much bigger thing, and this gave Kyle more confidence to keep going on with this project of his.