A Barter System to Save Money.

A barter system seems to be an excellent way to save money. If you have skills or goods that you can offer in exchange for skills and goods that you need, then bartering is the new way to save money.

First of all start in a small way - take a look around your local area and see what is on offer. Do any of your neighbours have surplus produce from their garden that you need? What can you offer in return? How about some baking? This is how you could set up a barter system with them.

Do you have a skill such as dressmaking, sewing or decorating, plumbing or gardening? Do any of your neighbours require transport on the odd occasion where you could help out with your car?

Can you look after a neighbour's dog or children on a short time basis?

There are so many multiples that you probably did not think they existed. All of which can make for a good barter system.

The exchange of skills and goods is making a comeback because of the credit squeeze - in fact it also makes a barter system inevitable. There are some web sites to cater for this barter system, and to make life easier for you, we offer a selection.

This site is vast, but finding your way around is easy because all the swaps are divided by county as you search for your exchange house.

This is one for the bookworms. It is the largest UK book swap site with 250,000 items listed. Membership is free and users are encouraged to post details of any books they no longer need.

Although based in California - and is shows from the jolly home page - it covers 91 countries including Britain.

Swapz claims to be the biggest, most established and original direct swap website where you can swap anything with anyone. It is free to join and you can start swapping straight away - anything from old ships' radios to bird collections

This site appears to be an alternative to freecycle - which you may prefer. It is divided into regions for ease of swapping, so if you have some stuff you wish to donate - give it a whirl!

Time banking link people locally to share their time and skills. Everyone's time is equal: one hour of your time earns you one time credit to spend when you need. Quite simple. You can find and join your nearest Time Bank by logging on to this site. it has been operating since 1998.

As a thought, if there is not a Time Bank operating in your area, why not investigate the possibility of starting one?

This is a very interesting site with an unusual offering.

It claims - make friends - learn a language. Lessons, books and CDs are great, but they can't replace speaking to a native speaker.

If this is your forte - give them a try and see what they can offer.

This site is different to those above. There are various articles for you to read from Growing your own vegetables, a Quick and Chunky Sock pattern to a Kimchi (Korean vegetable pickle) recipe - so the choice is yours. it is also possible to exchange seeds on this site.

Is a site for council house exchange, housing association exchange and home swaps in general. It covers England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales. It seems a bit basic, but may well provide a need. They claim to have 34,778 registered members, so you may well find what you are looking for here.