Barter-Nomics
by
Sandra Barron, Marie Claire
4/1/2006
This article first appeared in the April 2006 issue of Marie Claire and is about how to get what you want without spending money.
Excerpt:
SHARE AND SHARE ALIKE: A NEW GETAWAY
...Think you can't afford to go abroad? Rather than shell out for a pricey hotel room, some pleasure-seekers swap apartments to pare down costs. Lauren Ragland, 30, and her husband, from Brooklyn, NY, traded spaces with a Parisian named Philip. The $1500 they saved in hotel costs bankrolled a side jaunt to Barcelona- but the rewards weren't just monetary: Swapping let them "explore the city less like a tourist," says Ragland. Sure, she worried about giving a stranger her house keys carte blanche, but Philip provided references-and was an ideal houseguest. "The apartment looked better than we left it. My husband still talks about how perfectly our bed was made," she says. Maureen Dempsey, 31, saved $700 in dog-boarding expenses when she and her husband went away for two weeks and found an Irish student to stay in their home-in exchange for free pet-sitting. The unexpected upshot? Their house sitter was, conveniently, a veterinary student. And if you don't have a swanky pad to offer up, sites like Sabbaticalhomes.com and Caretaker.org let you register as a house sitter for people who want someone to keep an eye on their places.
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