25 Ways to Get and Give What You Need Without Spending Money

"Unshopping"

If you'd like to spend less, lessen your ecological footprint, and build connections with others in your community, then check out these great ideas for bartering or sharing to get what you need.

Nourishment
1. Hold a home-baked bread or dessert swap with friends and neighbors.
2. Grow your own fruits and vegetables to give away.
3. Share seeds, plants, and clippings from your garden.
4. Buy food or supplies in bulk and share with friends.
5. Start a dinner co-op.
6. Arrange a cooking day among friends where you all get together and prepare food in bulk.
7. Start a good times/bad times dinner program in your neighborhood. When something momentous happens to a family (having a baby, losing a loved one, illness, etc.), form a neighborhood team to provide dinners on a rotating basis until the family is back on its feet.

Care
8. Start a babysitting or childcare co-op.
9. Start a pet-sitting co-op.
10. Arrange to look after a sick friend with neighbors.

Home Help
11. Form a home-repair team. Give and get services from painting to putting up a fence or fixing the roof.
12. Share infrequently used tools and garden supplies. Start a community toolshed.
13. Collect partially used or unused cans of paint to share and exchange. It saves money and cuts down on toxic waste.

Goods
14. Hold a clothes swap at work, at your house of worship or on your street.
15. Hold toy or sporting goods swaps/exchanges for kids so they can learn new sports and games.

Knowledge
16. Exchange music, art, or cooking lessons.
17. Arrange a used book swap in your apartment building, in your neighborhood, at your workplace, or at your house of worship.

Services
18. Start a skills exchange in your community.
19. Start a carpool in your neighborhood or office.
20. Swap your skills for accommodation. Provide accounting, housework, nursing care, childcare, or other skills in return for a room in a house.
21. Alternatively, provide accommodations in your house to get the services you need and help a student or young person get started.

Community
22. Adopt a stream or a highway to restore or improve.
23. Give a traveler a place to stay.
24. Set up an area at a community center, apartment building, or hourse of worship where people can leave items they no longer need for others. Give what’s left to a charity.
25. Volunteer your time and energy in your neighborhood, city, town, or region.

Learn more about Shopping & Unshopping for people and the planet »


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