By Colleen Rothe

From the ashes of the old economy comes a new sort of economy – brought down off the proverbial historical shelf and dusted off to help us endure the New Depression: The Art of the Barter.

Bartering has, as expected, migrated to the online community. A crop of websites helping to facilitate “swapping,” the term for this modern barter system, has sprung up over the past year and is gaining momentum.

There are at least six sites if you just type SWAP in your Google tool bar. But two of them beat the rest in usability and traffic. And when you’re trying to swap some snow tires for a van for a cabin rental this fall – traffic is a good thing.

These sites include swap-bot.com, swapthing.com, swap.com and, of course, the barter link on Craigslist. Although the last seems to get lost in swapping items for cash, which isn’t what we’re talking about here. Our focus today is true barter systems.

The process follows a simple plan, you list something you want to swap, you look for the item you want to swap it for, then you propose the swap and on these sites, the swapping is free. The sites make their money, like most, by ads that appear on the perimeter of the webpage.

There’s something satisfying on several levels about this process – you get rid of an item you don’t want and receive something you do. The additional level is that your unwanted item doesn’t end up in some landfill and the best satisfaction of all, your budget is beefed up. No money going out means more funds for bills, savings, even that repair to your 10- year-old car.

Everything from collectible stamps and post-cards to desk lamps, couches, and my favorite – services – are available. There are also features on the website to get in-person “swap circles” started in your local community. I remember when I was younger and my parents took us to swap meets. I’d make sure I’d have my least favorite toy with me; my parents would have anything from old teapots to tools or this ugly suitcase my mother could never get rid of no matter how hard she tried to talk it up. We’d head to some random church or municipal parking lot somewhere and spend the afternoon swapping. Occasionally, a few dollars were exchanged on top of the item to even out the trade, but that was rare. It truly was a situation where one woman’s junk was another woman’s treasure.

So if you need to make your budget stretch, but you – like so many other Americans – have too much stuff, bartering – or swapping in its modern term – is a great way to stimulate your personal economy. It’s an old system, made new again by the online world, so your swap portfolio can reach a bigger market.