She also barters for the smaller stuff. Rather than plunk down cash, she's hoping to offer someone an hour of private Pilates instruction, which normally costs $150, to clean her house once a week.
"I don't think people realize the power of bartering," Huggins said. "Sometimes we don't value what we have in our services because we put so much value on the tangible dollar."
For avid swappers, cash-free transactions provide a sense of community and connection that money can't always buy.
Chris Murphy, a 42-year-old violinist from Santa Monica, has been bartering for years. He exchanged private lessons for website design services and played a wedding for a used Nissan Pathfinder. Soon he was trading for vacation homes in Big Bear, even legal services. He gives some of his students barter credits: For every four hours they work in his office doing data entry and other duties, they get a music lesson.
Holiday budgeting
For Elle Febbo, a 34-year-old freelance writer and mother of four sons from Saugus, bartering is more of a necessity. Finances tightened with the writers strike -- her husband is a key grip -- and she was out of work for a few years recovering from skin cancer and working with a nonprofit organization to help others cope with the disease.
The family made big changes, such as renting out their home and moving into a smaller one to scrimp on expenses. She also barters. That's how she exchanged a flat iron she won in a raffle for five BB guns and four walkie-talkies for summer camping trips.
"I count it as a blessing that bartering is an option," Febbo said. "Somebody's got what you need, you have something someone else wants."
Helen Roberts, an economics professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, says holiday shoppers will turn to bartering and other cost-saving measures this year as their confidence in the economy sinks. "People are feeling they can't blow the budget in the way they used to be able to," she said.
But people won't buck the cash economy when good times return, said Lawrence J. White, professor of economics at New York University's Stern School of Business.
"Bartering waxes and wanes," White said. "Money is really the most efficient mechanism."
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jessica.guynn@latimes.com.
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BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX
Fair trade
Do your homework
Research the going rate for the products or services you are bartering. Be open to negotiation.
Be specific and clear
Know what it is you want and what you have to offer.
Keep records
Technically, barter transactions are taxable, but you generally don't have to report them unless they are replacing income you would have otherwise received. Talk to your accountant or financial advisor about when you should report trades.
Follow personal safety and scam precautions
Meet in a public place, tell a friend where you are going and bring your cellphone and a friend with you. More tips: www.craigslist.org/about/safety
Sources: Craigslist and Mary Hunt of www.DebtProofLiving.com
