As a child I learned about the usual ways of sharing through visits to thrift stores, hand-me-downs, and rummage sales. In the rural town where I grew up, there was also The Dump.

Every Saturday morning, my father rounded up the trash to bring to the transfer station, appropriately named since he would transfer our garbage then load up with other people's cast-offs, transferring more debris into the garage than he brought to the dump in the first place. My mother would just put the stuff in the next week's pile of rubbish. I witnessed re-recycling firsthand.

The Dump encouraged trading and sharing, though, with its gallery-style driveway: cast-off wire and metals, plastics in every color, broken furniture, car parts, unwanted toys, and obsolete electronics all sorted and elegantly displayed. You could contribute to the piles by adding or subtracting at will. Incidentally, this dump holds an annual art show with items crafted from pieces of stuff found at The Dump.

After the dump run, my father tuned his transistor radio, adjusting the long, skinny antenna, into the static-y and tinny sounds of Swap Shop callers from all over Connecticut. People traded everything from mufflers to ear muffs. (After that, we listened to opera for the rest of the day.)

When my family had an interest in a Swap Shop item I'd go on the ride to get our "new" used things. On the way home we would stop at the most crammed packed salvage joint to inspect used tires, old furniture, and what looked, to my uncreative mind at the time, like a lot of junk.

Then, when I was about seven, my father took me to a farm to show me "our" beefalo-a cross between domestic cattle and bison. Our family and a couple of others bought a cow together, shared the expenses, and the result was little packages of meat wrapped in white paper marked with "tongue" or "sirloin" in the freezer in our basement. It made sense to me at the time, since I figured my family couldn't eat a whole cow on our own.

Sharing is a way of life for many and some new ways to share are making for great economic opportunities for the sharer and the share-ee.

• If you like the idea of purchasing fresh food directly from a farm and sharing lamb, beef, pork, or poultry production, look up the Department of Agriculture at DOAG: CT Grown Meat Producers. You'll find a list of local farms with meat for sale as well as guidelines for selling and purchasing.

• EatWild.com/products/Connecticut lists links to sites and provides a map of locations that sell cheese, honey, and other products. Check out ctnofa.org for Community Supported Agriculture (CSA), organic farm produce, and pick-your-own products.

• Depending on where you are, eggzy.net allows you locate fresh eggs. So far, Massachusetts and Rhode Island have the nearest backyard chicken locations. If you're going to subscribe to Rhode Island hens, investigate farmfresh.org for more Rhode Island freshness.

• You probably already use craigslist and eBay to buy and trade, but try sharing your stuff or exchanging favors at heyneighbor.com. When you join, you will be asked to identify your neighborhood on a map up to 75 miles. Similar to eBay, there is a Trusted Neighbor rating. I first learned about a comparable site, swap.com, after listening to the TED talk by Rachel Botsman on The Case for Collaborative Consumption. This free site offers a video tutorial on swapping your stuff and has no geographical boundaries.

• For people without cars who need to get around, there is getaround.com. People report earnings of $300 to $400 a month, on average, by renting out their idle cars. Unfortunately, this option hasn't come to Eastern cities yet, but ZipCars-wheels when you want them-live in many large cities and at universities including four in Connecticut. A similar idea comes from idriveyourcar.com where you are chauffeured in your own car, to places such as the airport, for reasonable rates.

• If you don't need a car, maybe a bike is the option for you. Bike sharing in the U.S. doubled last year and is expected to increase. Wikipedia's List of Bicycle Sharing Systems includes New York City as one of the world-wide cities with a bike share system, a great option for globetrotters.

• Once you get to where you're going, in your rented getaround car, with luggage you won on ebay, and you're plants are going to be watered by one of your heyneighbors, you'll need a place to stay. Try airbnb.com for a list of global accommodations. You can connect with like-minded people on this site-alumni from your alma mater, foodies, Facebook friends, and soccer fans to name a few of the groups listed.

Or maybe you'll earn money by hosting a traveler in a ZipCar, who swapped a comic book collection for an airline ticket, and his chicken's eggs will be collected by his heyneighbor so his eggzy customers can make omelets for their totally organic breakfast nook. Do you have a spare bike he can borrow?

Naomi Migliacci is an international consultant who enjoys traveling and adventure. She collects friends and bracelets wherever she goes. She lives in Guilford. Find more of Naomi's budget-friendly tips in the Living section of your Zip06 homepage.