Couple of ideas:
1. The Episcopal Church and the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America are now in full communion, meaning a Lutheran pastor can vest as an Episcopalian priest and celebrate the Eucharist according to the Book of Common Prayer, and an Episcopalian priest can vest as a Lutheran pastor and celebrate a Lutheran service according to their missal or it's equivalent.
It occurs to me that if you have an ELCA congregation that's close enough that you're considering going there every other week, perhaps something could be worked out to get one of their pastors over to your Episcopalian parish to celebrate the Eucharist on the weeks where your Episcopalian priest is unavailable due to cost concerns. Your parish might have to change it's Eucharist service time(s) to accommodate this if the time(s) conflict with service(s) at the Lutheran parish, but it seems like a possibility. If they are similarly struggling financially, maybe you can both hire the same priest/pastor, each paying half the salary, and have him or her do two services on Sunday- one at the Episcopalian parish and one at the Lutheran congregation, with office hours split between the two parishes/congregations. The main lectionary in both the Episcopal Church and ELCA is now the Revised Common Lectionary, so the priest or pastor could literally prepare the same sermon on the same readings every week (Granted, some Episcopalian parishes are still using the BCP lectionary, and some ELCA congregations ignore the lectionary, but under the circumstances, if this type of arrangement were worked out, it would seem prudent to both go to the RCL [If they aren't already using it], which is now the officially preferred lectionary of both groups since you want your shepherd to be able to minister to both groups).
The priest or pastor chosen would have to learn the service of the church he or she wasn't ordained in, but they are very similar services, especially if your parish uses Rite II, and they can read while an altar server holds up a book opened to the appropriate pages during the liturgy of the word and have a book set up on the altar to read from during the liturgy of the eurcharist. Many Roman Catholic priests do this for masses (I know, I was an altar server when I was a child and had to hold the book some weeks!) and they are celebrating masses in their own tradition exactly as they learned in seminary!
2. Most Episcopalian dioceses have lists of supply priests (priests who are ordained but currently not assigned- they may be semi-retired priests looking for occasional work, newly ordained priests who still haven't found a permanent position, or priests who are between positions) who you can hire by the service to come in only for the service itself for a relatively small fee (I think we're talking a couple hundred dollars a week or something like that). Often these lists are used to get a priest to fill in if the usual priest is sick or on vacation, but I don't think they have to solely used for that purpose.
I would talk to your vestry and see what can be worked out. What if you found out what the weekly cost for a supply priest (or a series of supply priests, perhaps a rotation, or a different one each week) would be to come in and celebrate the Eucharist for you when your regular priest can't, and got a few people together to pledge the funds and have them be specifically earmarked for that purpose (Maybe get an extra person or two in case some people welch- and if no one welches, the extra funds can go into the church's general fund)? Then, present it to the vestry- or talk to your senior warden before you start this and ask if he or she would be open to accepting earmarked donations specifically to hire supply priests on the Sundays without a priest and how much money would be needed.
This becomes a bit more complicated if you are mission parish that has no vestry, but you could talk to the bishop's office or the priest-in-charge you've hired to see if this is a possibility.
I mean, really, let's say the cost for a supply priest to come in and do a Eucharist service is, say, $200 per service (I am just guessing- check on the actual cost first
), and you only want him or her for one service per week, and only need him or her for 2 weeks out of the month (Because you already have a priest for the other two weeks, and let's say on the few months there's a fifth Sunday, *then* you do morning prayer- just for the fifth Sunday of the month when there is one), all you need are 4 people to chip in $50 each on a given Sunday where you need the supply priest, or $100 a month in special earmarked contributions in addition to their normal pledge. Let's make it 5 or 6 people just in case some people don't live up to their commitments. If you could double that 4-6 to 8-10 people, you could just do $25 each or $50 a month.
I don't know if that figure is realistic, or if you can afford part of it and find enough people who can afford it and would be willing to do it. But it's an idea.
You could either find one supply priest to handle those weeks if one was willing, or maybe call down the list from week to week and see who you can get on any given Sunday. A rotation might also be a possibility.
