Moving towards minimalism, but how do I handle friends who repeatedly borrow and borrow and borrow?

In the process of minimalist transformation. Got a lot on my plate right now, so I'm just taking it one step at a time. I'm partially finished, but still a lot of work to be done. I live alone, so that makes it easier. I'm a pack rat and I've known this for a while. But I finally decided to take the leap and do something about it. It's been a really long and tiring process, but the results are great so far. The house is slowly becoming more organized, I'm more organized and there's just really nothing like the feeling of having less. <br><br>However, I have friends who are not minimalists who repeatedly borrow from me. Mind you, I have no problem, per se, with lending, um, say a movie to one of them to watch, or bringing my tablet over to one of their houses, or even lending one of them a book to read. I would never deny them that. But it seems like I'm constantly getting requests to borrow things and I'm tired of having so many items I never see. How do I confront them without coming off as a jerk? <br><br>Take this situation for example: I have a friend who works in IT, whereas I'm a software engineer. And he's constantly calling me up asking if he can borrow this little snippet of cord that attaches his phone to his PC to transfer files. Now I have no problem lending him that, but he does this every few days and I'm always making trips to his house to lend him this stupid little thing. So one day I finally told him that if he keeps asking, he's going to have to buy one himself. He got really mad at me, telling me that I was a really selfish person. I was shocked by his reaction. <br><br>Because of its light weight and the fact that you can carry it on your person, I have lots of requests to borrow my tablet. Borrowing my tablet is significantly different from borrowing a movie or a book or even a snippet of cord. My tablet is priceless to me and I'm a bit of a paranoid person, so I don't even think I'd be the type of person to lend out my tablet ever. But a friend of mine kept making requests to borrow my friend's tablet, since she's bought an iPad and no longer uses it. Now I know I'm taking it to an extreme here, she's an old friend and I trust her, but I still refuse to let her borrow my tablet. I'd feel anxious about it the whole time it was on her possession. What if she accidentally dropped it and cracked the screen? What if she lost it? Those types of thoughts would run through my mind the whole time. So I told her flat out no, I'm not going to lend you my tablet. I think she was offended, but I tried to explain to her that my tablet is basically my baby. I have everything on it. It's my calender, my address book, my movie library, my comic library, my music library. I couldn't live without it for a while. For example, if she borrowed it for three weeks, I'd be without my tablet for three weeks. That would be like trying to take away a fundamental body organ from me. So that's my justification. However, she was really offended and hasn't talked to me for a while. It's like she can't comprehend my justification. <br><br>So these types of situations keep happening. I've got a friend who repeatedly borrowed my coat. I've got a friend who repeatedly borrows my smartphone accessories. It's always something. I feel like I'm running a fucking free rental store and I just want to scream at all of them to stop asking me so many times. How do I confront them without coming off as an asshole or a selfish person?