When I was a little girl, my mom had an antique typewriter—the one pictured on the About Me  page of this site. If she needed to type something and didn’t have access to the more modern machines she used at the office, she’d pull out that big, clunky Remington and start pounding the stiff, old keys.

When I was 12, I wanted to type like Mom. So I asked to borrow old Model Seventeen, carefully covered the keys with black electrical tape, and started training myself in the Qwerty keyboard. It didn’t take long before I was fast enough to make the long, silver keys crush together in a big clump, too.

Since then, I’ve earned a degree in journalism and picked up a lot of additional training. But none of the formal education I’ve received has been as essential to my everyday work as the hours I spent practicing on that antique typewriter.

Just because times are hard and money is scarce doesn’t mean you can’t broaden your skill set to make yourself more marketable. Try these ideas:

• Barter your talents. What skills do you bring to the table? Contact local community colleges and vocational centers to learn whether you can audit other classes if you become a lecturer on a subject in which you have expertise. You may be able to earn a little extra money in addition to building your knowledge base.

• Start a cross-training club. Contact friends who have different talents and arrange to meet once a week or once a month and cross-train one another in various skills. Perhaps you can teach someone the basics of HTML code in exchange for a crash course in public speaking.

• Monitor local opportunities. Be sure to check the local newspaper, shoppers, trade publications, and community Internet sites for announcements about guest speakers or free seminars where you can pick up how-to tips at little or no cost. If course-completion certificates are offered, all the better.

• Make bold suggestions. Is a large local employer having trouble finding local talent to meet its specialized needs. Contact the employer and suggest the company consider providing the necessary training to bring local workers up to speed. You have nothing to lose by asking—and if the company likes your idea, you may have everything to gain.