Have something you don't need, and want something you don't have? Online barter might be the answer.

Sites like Swap.com, U-Exchange, Swap Mamas and BookMooch help  you exchange your goods or services for somebody else's.

A quick look around the virtual swap meet turned up everything from child care to live ammunition (but not from the same person). I saw offers for comic books, furniture, plows, Barbies, carpentry, web design, strollers, tax prep, cameras and chiropractic.  

Sometimes lunch out means networking, or wining and dining clients. For plenty of us, it translates to just an extra expense.

How much of an expense? Even if you could do it for $5 a pop -- unlikely these days -- that amounts to as much as $1,300 a year. What else could you do with that kind of money?

Yet I've heard the darnedest excuses for not brown-bagging, from "It takes too long to pack" (as opposed to waiting for a table at a restaurant, right?) to "Sandwiches just get too boring."

Guess what. It doesn't have to be a sandwich.  

A few years ago, I interviewed a group of "sweepers," folks whose hobby is entering contests and sweepstakes. They routinely won things like cash (as much as $100,000 at a clip), savings bonds, jewelry, tech items, vacations, cars, furniture, toys, concert tickets and free gasoline.

My favorite was marketing consultant Noah Fleming, who for a time entered up to 30 contests a day. Here's a sampling of what he scored in just two years: a 46-inch LCD television, a home theater system, DVD box sets, a Wii, a Flip Mino HD camera, two Xbox 360s plus games, an all-expenses-paid trip to the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland, concert tickets, a 20-inch iMac, an autographed hockey jersey, an iPod, a Tassimo coffeemaker and two Dell laptops.

But that's not the best part.

 

Every waking hour, consumers are bombarded with deals. Online and on TV, in magazines and on the sides of buses, ads show us objects we can't possibly live without.

Except that we usually can. How do you suppose people managed before greeting card companies made birthday cards "from the cat" or "from me and the dog"? Before applesauce came in tubes? Before we started thinking our blankets needed sleeves?  

Since mid-March, I've written seven articles on frugal wedding tactics. During the research I heard ideas that I can describe only as thinking outside the etiquette book.

My favorite? The unclaimed cake slicer.  

During a recent house-sitting job in Anchorage, I bought a can of black beans for 89 cents. Given how pricey food is in Alaska, this was a welcome find. Also a slightly battered one: It came from dented-can bin.

You've heard of scratch-and-dent appliance sales? I apply the same shopping ethos to groceries, keeping my food bill down with "used meat," close-dated milk (I've paid as little as 99 cents a gallon), and slightly damaged dry and canned goods.

So do plenty of other people. In fact, some regions have entire stores devoted to "salvage" groceries. I wish.

Just how scratched and how dented are these foods?  

While browsing on Amazon.com recently, a personal finance blogger named Andrea noticed an on-screen message: "Do you own this book? Trade it in for $24!" This made her think of all those college textbooks she'd kept because she was sure she'd use them all the time.

You guessed it: She hasn't touched a single one since earning her master's degree seven years ago. Andrea wondered whether Amazon would be interested in some trades.

Would it ever.

 

As I noted in "A recipe for saving money," cooking at home can save you a ton of bucks. But just as you wouldn't do your own home repairs without a few basic tools, you shouldn't enter the kitchen without a few basic cooking supplies.

Nor should you pay retail if you can help it.