I'm A Bad Swapper Oh Swaptree will you ever forgive this slacker Mommy? Today I ran, walked meandered my way to the mailbox and there was a glorious copy of My Sister's Keeper. Yeah, it's brand spankin' new with maybe a little bit of yellowing to the pages and it's all mine for the price of a DVD that my kids will never watch again. But here's my confession. I'm a super sucky slacker swapper, because I've put the Disney DVD in the mail only just today. Yes, days and days after I should have. That's the (one and only) downfall of Swaptree. Like so many other online sites they do have feedback and I suspect mine will be awful so, y'all know not to swap with me. But seriously folks, if you do take crap off my hands trade with me I double dog swear that I will not ever take this long to ship again. Promise! Okay, here's how it works (it's sooooo cool):

You go to Swaptree.com and register, quick and easy (you can tell them that JessicaG sent you). Next you take a stack of books, music, movies or games and enter their ISBN numbers and use a pull down tab to disclose their condition. This will take you approximately 20 seconds per item. Here's where it gets uber cool. There's an algorithm (fancy pants terminology for computer program) that will match your "haves" with your "wants" and then a Swap occurs. When you're all logged in you can see which items are available to you. Don't like what you see? Add more stuff of your own and the world is your oyster. As of this moment I have exactly seven items I'm willing to send out and One Hundred and Fifteen available to me. Brilliant.

In my case I sent The Lion King to Ohio. Some chickadee in Ohio got a mind-numbing wonderful movie for her toddler. She sent something (I have no idea what) so someone in Illinois and I got real honest-to-goodness literature from Illinois. You print the postage through Swaptree (mine was $2.36) and that's the total expense. I've never purchased a book for under $3 that I'd actually wanted so from a purse cost basis this is a dream. For every mother who has said, "Yes" too many times in the Disney Store, for every Mother whose children are indulged by doting Grandparents or generous hand me downs, Swaptree is a blessing. The kids really don't need (or want) eighteen DVDs in the house. Further, when the kids are learning to love reading we all excitedly buy the entire Judy Moody series only to find out that what they really wanted was The Magic Treehouse. If I'd had a forum like Swaptree when I was in school I could have saved hundreds of dollars every year on textbook purchases as well. Swaptree will appeal to the Green Momma in you as well as the coupon clipper. Sometimes sustainability can feel like a burden but Swaptree proves that going green can be cheap and cheerful.