I like the Buy Nothing Project. As best I can tell the organization that kinda started (or at least consolidated and streamlined) the idea doesn't make any money off of it, and you just end up getting stuff you need for free, and giving away stuff you don't to people who actually want it that live right in your neighborhood.
The premise is simple: You join a local group, you can only join one and there's usually some sort of step to verify you actually live in the area (actual steps vary by group) to prevent people from going around and gathering free stuff to resell themselves. Then you post items you're giving away on whatever board your group uses (again each local group does it a little different, but usually jewbook or something), and can can contact anyone else in the group about getting an item they have to give away.
It's not exactly trading, which is not supposed to happen, rather you just give the stuff away without return, but people who are active in the group often make notes and see who is participating in good faith and who is taking advantage (E.g. will be like "Hey asshole, you sign up to take literally everything anyone posts here and never give anything away. You're clearly not just taking items you actually need/want but trying to take advantage." So if you post stuff to give away you're more likely to get stuff when you want it.
Doesn't help you if need cash for your items, or if it's big ticket enough that some selling effort is worth it. However, very useful if you have a some items that you're like, "Well I could probably sell this for a few bucks, but do I really want to do deal with every scammer and timewaster who will contact me from craigslist over 25 bucks?" So you give it away to someone in your greater neighborhood, and then if you see something you want you just go get it from them no money spent.
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