For the newly laid off, life can seem bleak. Days once marked by painful morning commutes, endless meetings and wilted sandwiches at lunch now consist of hours spent searching online job ads, unshowered and bathrobe-clad, as thoughts drift to food banks and burning personal belongings for warmth.
But it doesn't have to be that way.
Tough times call for creative solutions, and as a growing number of Canadians are finding out, there are ways to get through life without draining their savings.
After all, money isn't everything.
Bartering, the centuries-old system of exchanging goods or services - without spending a nickel - is experiencing a resurgence in Canada and other countries feeling the effects of the economic downturn.
"We've noticed a huge increase in our traffic," said John Moore, founder of U-exchange.com, an international, members-only online bartering centre based in Cambridge, Ont. "It's all because of the credit crunch and the economy. People, they have to be creative now."
Membership jumped from 27,800 on Jan. 1, 2008, to 48,000 on Jan. 1, 2009. More than 2,200 members signed up from Dec. 19, 2008 to Jan. 18, 2009, compared with less than 1,400 a year earlier.
Online page views on the site also rose to nearly 730,000 in the past month, an increase of more than 123 per cent compared with a year earlier.
"It's the economy," Mr. Moore said. "I think people are just starting to hunker down a bit more."
Recent posts on U-exchange include a woman who was looking to swap time at her family's ski chalet in Whistler, B.C., for a vacation in a home in London or Paris, and another member who wanted to trade a dining-room set for home repair services.
Bartering tends to spike during a recession or times of financial uncertainty as people look for alternatives to the cash economy, Mr. Moore said.
But this is the first major downturn since the Internet age began, and the speed and ease of online trading is introducing a whole new set of people to the barter movement.
Trade-seekers have been bombarding sites such as Craigslist and other online classified-ad sites as a way to cast a wide net for possible exchanges. While some sites, such as U-exchange, charge a membership fee, many classified sites, such as Freecycle.com, just require a user registration. On sites such as Craigslist, anyone is free to post offers, free of charge and without identification.
The offers are as varied as the websites on which they are posted: A personal trainer in exchange for professional portraits; Spanish lessons for home repairs; accounting services for website hosting; a digital camera for an iPod Nano; a laptop for a PlayStation. Many users post what they're willing to trade, such as a TV, self-defence lessons, a belt buckle collection or a winter coat, and ask for offers.
"I find that as times are getting tougher, personally I'm less willing to go out and buy things for myself as well," said Darcy Delaney, who lives near Newmarket, Ont., and has dabbled in online trading for nearly two years. "If I'm in need of something tangible, I find it easier to trade for it."
Mr. Delaney, who said the idea of recycling and reducing waste brought him to bartering, has successfully traded tennis racquets for CDs and a dishwasher for a dryer in recent months. He's landed a variety of kitchen appliances in the past, and also scored an aquarium through bartering. He's also offered guitar lessons, but hasn't had any takers.
But the bartering resurgence is also built on newcomers who may have been skeptical of online trading in the past, but are now looking for options during a cash crunch.
