Frugal Fridays

My Frugal Friday (for Crystal's blog on Biblical Womanhood) tips for today are:

Barter with friends! Here is a pic of how I was blessed yesterday by a good friend. Her baby girl is almost a year and on whole milk now and she had about 7 cans of un-opened formula which she gave to me for my baby boy since my breastmilk is starting to dry up (he's 9 months). I was wondering how I was going to squeeze the budget enough to start buying formula since it's SO EXPENSIVE! God is sooooo good to provide for our every little need! My friend received some of these cans of formula last year from our other friend who no longer needed them when her twins turned one. If I don't end up needing them all before my son is a year, I plan to pass them on to another Christian mom who could benefit from the. They're good until 2009! Since my friend was so willing to bless me with $110 worth of formula for free, I plan to bless her by not charging her for the month of August for the babysitting I do for her son once a week (since she's a working mom).

My parents taught me to barter because my dad often did it in his self-owned furniture business. He'd trade a log bed for a half a beef from a rancher friend. They even traded furniture to the orthodontist for my brother's braces!

My friends and I also have clothing swaps where we all bring clothes/toys/baby gear we don't want or are willing to loan out and we swap things around. This is a great since it's absolutely free, which is even better than garage sale-ing (though I do love yard sales!!!) I've also traded baby-sitting for my exercise bike.

My final tip is: Swap your books at a used bookstore for credit. My brother is leaving for Argentina as a missionary and gave me his entire enormous library of books. I took in those that I didn't want for myself or my church library and got tons of credit. In turn, I got these great books pictured and still have $20 to spend there!