Frugality requires creativity when it comes to how and when to spend money. Often, the best approach is to plunge in and buy the best quality products you can afford (after you’ve done your homework, of course). Another great way to save money is to engage in the fine art of bartering. Back in our grandparents’ day, it was a common practice to trade labor or goods with others who have skills or items that you needed. My grandmother, Mary, a homesteader, made large batches of real lye soap in her hand-forged open kettle oven built for cooking soap.

Not every farmer wanted or could afford to tie up the space needed to house this kind of oven, but since Mary’s father-in-law was a blacksmith, he was able to fashion a large metal disk that fit into a brick oven that heated the soap mixture. As a kid, I was never allowed over to her house on soap making day as the caustic mixing of the real wood lye with the other ingredients was more dangerous than it is now with the newly processed lye. She set her blocks of soap out to cure in the sun. The pungent bone-colored soap cleaned clothes on a washboard and even cured poison ivy. No worries if you don’t have the time to make your own, Buchheit stocks Grandma Bee’s products.

Around here, everyone trades labor during butchering season. It requires many hands to take a hog or steer from “on the hoof” to the finished hams or steaks. Families and neighbors either work together to dress out multiple animals at one location or take turns working at each farm until everyone has their freezers filled. Local bartering at its best!

As Jim and I age, we find trading labor for knowledge or skills is a great way to continue enjoying life on our homestead. Last fall, I spent many evenings sewing antique buttons to vintage fabric flowers to be used in our young friends’ wedding. In exchange, she helped us pour concrete, a win-win for both parties.

Her husband came with her to a recent pour and traded his manpower for a chance to learn from Jim. He was wise beyond his years to apprentice with a seasoned expert. Jim and I (and Jim’s collection of concrete tools) will help him later when they pour a patio. Using Jim’s tools will also help him select what concrete tools to purchase.

I am, by choice, a stone-ager when it comes to the Internet and iPhone technology. I save my mental bandwidth for important gardening and homesteading facts rather than how to download an app or cut and paste. So, I bake and barter my way to Internet help when needed. Isaac, a professional coder, computer genius and boyhood friend of my sons, will research and purchase new laptops or gadgets for me in exchange for my chocolate steamed cake or homemade cinnamon rolls. I tell him my specs, and he finds the best buy and presto! We have a great trade, but on this one, I think he is also kind, so the trade is more one-sided.

A recent swap of skill sets was for a family friends’ bridal shower. A wonderful “city slicker” (this to me is a term of affection) could create complicated paper flowers using a paper-cutting machine called a Cricket. This high tech tool can take time to master the more complex patterns. So we made a trade to use her expert skills. She worked her artistry and look at the results!

In exchange, she received a basket filled with an abundance of my homemade breakfast link saugage, fresh eggs, organic spinach, romaine lettuce, and green onions. Each party thought the trade was great as it represented the heart of a good barter, trading for the treasure you don’t have. I hope you will think outside the box soon and come up with a trade or barter. It’s a great way to stretch your homesteading dollars. Be blessed! Enjoy today!

Ann May