I do want to get an external flash but seeing as I have no money, am out of a job, and am taking way too many credits and doing too many extra curricular activities to making earning money possible I'm stuck without one at least until the holidays. In the mean time I'll have to make do with what I've got and though I've always avoided using a flash I figure maybe it has some uses. I got to thinking this because, on a little excursion, I came upon a much older an much more experienced photographer who let me see that it could help.
I know of a few tricks with it like using a notecard to bounce the light up and how to use it as a fill flash when the background is overly bright. There's a lot of wisdom and creativity to be found here so I figured I'd ask.
Thanks in advance for the help.
Desperate times call for desperate measures 
OK but seriously, there are definitely some tips out there. I personally used to just use the flash on the lowest setting on my 10D, and if indoors try to rely on low aperture, slow shutter and high iso to fill in the blanks (as well as whatever ambient light was floating around). That way I could just get a tiny bit of onboard flash in there (since it's such a horrible flash, you don't want too much of it). I also had an onboard flash diffuser, which didn't do heaps but did enough to take the harshness away from the direct flash. Cost me about 5 bucks on ebay.
