Bartering?

Quick question about setting up local or regional bartering "clubs."

Maybe it is addressed somewhere else, but I know that if you offer something for sale, (deleted reference to sharing a portion of your income unwillingly).

Bartering lets you get this if you give that. Hey, I'll trade you one of my shiny glass jars of elderberry jam for a shiny glass jar of your honey.

Or "I'm broke at the moment, but I'll reglaze those windows and repair that screen on the back of your house for a few pounds of ground bison."

Have any of you had good or bad experiences with bartering?



j

Firstly letting you know I'm glad you put a location on your profile, that helps people know what region you're in for comparison purposes.  I eventually also added my grow zone since I post in the growies area a lot.

Anyways, I've never participated in a barter club or group.  I almost made it once to a barter meetup group but some stupid thing came up and interfered, hopefully someday.  What i do a lot is to share what we have extra, not explicitly in trade for something else, but just because, and that spirit of cooperation ingenders interest in others in sharing with us when they have extra.

A monthly barter meetup would be cool.

Last year, my in laws had an overabundance of fresh peaches, and my friends on their farm had a bunch of meat birds, so they traded a couple boxes of peaches for a few processed chickens for the freezer. Worked out pretty well... but the hard thing is finding two people who both have an abundance of something that the other person wants, at the same time. Which is why money was invented, of course. But then there's that pesky thing you mentioned without mentioning.

A regional bartering meetup kinda thing would be cool. For free stuff, I often watch Freecycle near my area (but all the best stuff is usually over the mountain 40 minutes away, and only worth it for large, expensive items). The most common "trade" that happens around me, however, is just sharing extra, as Riona mentioned.

My husband helped some friends of ours out with their excavator, helping to fix it. They gave us some honey. But it wasn't exactly at the same time, and nobody talked about payment or demanded an exchange of some kind.

People bring extra veggies to church in season when a surplus comes pouring out of their garden. Once a month the men get together early on a Saturday to discuss a book and then go to someone's house and help them out with what needs done. (Felling trees, splitting wood for a widow, putting a new roof on somebody's house, mulching.) When a couple has a new baby, there's a queue for making them dinner for a few weeks--and you'd better jump on the list fast, otherwise there will be no more spots.

I was talking to the lady who takes care of the plants around the church about gardens and flowerbeds, and she said that she's having to downsize her gardens and flowerbeds as she gets older, and could come by sometime with some plants if I wanted them and help me put them in. And I was talking to an older man about his apricot, which flowers too early and loses buds to frost, and he offered me plants as well. Another woman has an elderberry bush and offered me a cutting. At the moment, I don't have much to offer in return, but they're willing to give generously, and I'm very thankful for that. Hopefully I'll be able to bless them as well in the future, or to serve in some other way, but it's not a transactional relationship. No one's keeping count. We're all trying to give when we can.

I guess what I'm trying to get at is that, when you have a built-in community already like that, often the most wonderful things happen just from talking to people and from freely giving. These people have known me for over a decade, some of them since I was born (!), so that helps.

But... some people don't have a community like that at the ready. A sort of organized bartering/exchange system would be wonderful there. I'm imagining something like Freecycle, but for bartering...

My husband's bad experience with bartering came when he built something for a friend and was offered a motorcycle in exchange. The motorcycle wasn't what he expected--it needed a lot more work than advertised, and my husband felt a bit cheated, as the work he had offered was of much greater value. It's that difficult thing where working for friends and family can drive a wedge between people. For bartering there would need to be clear expectations up front. And perhaps not bartering with friends and family. I prefer freely giving and receiving with no accounting, anyway...

My good experience with bartering was when I traded help processing some meat ducks for a five gallon bucket of earthworms (and some cash). I had already been helping with chicken processing, and when asked to help with ducks, I proposed the earthworm trade. It was clear up front, and honestly I was prepared to be happy with whatever I received. I wasn't even expecting to be paid, too, so that was just a bonus.

My mother, a teacher, barters her help weeding and working at our friend's farm (same friend with the chickens) for part of a CSA share each week during the summer. She loves it. But again, we know these people from church, so that's where the connection started.

I haven't had a lot of luck with bartering but I have done essentially the adjacent.

It starts off with thinking of something that someone you know might want of yours, and gifting them that thing. I'm talking plant cuttings, extra eggs, or perhaps a few crocheted wash clothes that have been sitting around. They then end up gifting you something back. Gift giving isn't necessarily bartering but it seems to be things that we have in abundance that the other may not have. It is very sweet in any case.

My mother in law obtained for us a bunch of 6 pack paper containers for eggs so we can gift them in smaller bundles than a full dozen. This is what has started the chain of events that is the swap that I have been experiencing.

We have received a shopping bag of walnuts, a bottle of homemade whisky, and candles at one point.

You’re doing it right.

j

Timothy Norton wrote:I haven't had a lot of luck with bartering but I have done essentially the adjacent.

It starts off with thinking of something that someone you know might want of yours, and gifting them that thing. I'm talking plant cuttings, extra eggs, or perhaps a few crocheted wash clothes that have been sitting around. They then end up gifting you something back. Gift giving isn't necessarily bartering but it seems to be things that we have in abundance that the other may not have. It is very sweet in any case.

My mother in law obtained for us a bunch of 6 pack paper containers for eggs so we can gift them in smaller bundles than a full dozen. This is what has started the chain of events that is the swap that I have been experiencing.

We have received a shopping bag of walnuts, a bottle of homemade whisky, and candles at one point.

My best ever barter was to trade maple syrup and squash for a house call by a MD who did a small dermatology procedure.  

Hi,

Interesting post, thank you.

I haven’t done any bartering as such but I live on a very small island of 65 people so sharing and helping each other out is common. However, what is a brilliant idea (in my mind) is the credit commons system, which is set up for building communities and getting us away from the extractive debt based and totally unsustainable system of money that we currently have. Please see here https://www.lowimpact.org/categories/economy/commons-economy
https://www.lowimpact.org/categories/economy/commons-economy/

Hi and welcome to you.  I had a quick look at the low impact site and added it to my list of things to look into later.

Thank you for your interesting post.


Peace

Hello All,

I am part of a barter group here in Ontario Canada. The concept is called a LETS( local economic trade system). We call ours the Saugeen Trading Community. You can google it and see what our mission statement, etc looks like. This group has been running for almost 40 years and we( hubby and I) have been a part of it for over 20. There are a lot of different barter systems out there. Most fail. The new ones are all online and it appears you give money to one source and they take care of the administration side of things. With our group, we have volunteers that we call the " core group" who get elected. They take care of all the administration. They are compensated a small amount in our currency "Saubucks" but it is mostly volunteer. We have market days 3 times per year and you can trade any other time as well. Happy to answer questions if anyone has them.

Timothy Norton wrote:I haven't had a lot of luck with bartering but I have done essentially the adjacent.

It starts off with thinking of something that someone you know might want of yours, and gifting them that thing. I'm talking plant cuttings, extra eggs, or perhaps a few crocheted wash clothes that have been sitting around. They then end up gifting you something back. Gift giving isn't necessarily bartering but it seems to be things that we have in abundance that the other may not have. It is very sweet in any case.

My mother in law obtained for us a bunch of 6 pack paper containers for eggs so we can gift them in smaller bundles than a full dozen. This is what has started the chain of events that is the swap that I have been experiencing.

We have received a shopping bag of walnuts, a bottle of homemade whisky, and candles at one point.

Yes, this is how it ideally works, and it works well here on the French country side, neighbors and friends gifting what they have in abundance, when they have it in abundance, no strings attached - it's a "normal thing to do".
Prior to living on the countryside I was in the suburbia of Amsterdam (the Netherlands) and spent more time on Instagram. There I found crafters that were happy to barter their crafted items to my organic herbs from my own garden, but also the overgrowth=harvested herbs from a Healing Garden I used to volunteer in.
So there are more possibilities than the obvious neighbour-to-neighbour!

I've had a deal going for a couple of years with a woman who lives 5 miles away and has goats. About every nine days I'd bring whatever extra produce I had--I am a serious gardener and she has been caring for elderly parents and her gardening time was limited--in exchange for 3 quarts of fresh raw goat milk. Sometimes she'd give me chevre or goat milk soap; I could clean her barn for the manure, sometimes she had extra hay that wasn't good enough for goats...sometimes I had buckets full of leafy branches or wormy carrots, etc., for her goats. In the beginning I paid for the cheese with money, but we soon dropped that, both finding a cash-free exchange more satisfying and neither of us worrying about trying to assess equal cash value. Right now her goats are dry and she hasn't found a dairy buck, but I'm still going over there tomorrow with some extra produce, and buckets or bags for manure and hay.
Bad barters are two exchanges my ex made decades ago. He felt ripped off afterward, but I came to realize it was a cultural misunderstanding. The local ethic sees barter as a competitive game where each tries to get the best deal--as far as they were concerned, they won and they likely thought my ex was stupid. Whereas his understanding was that barter was like the arrangement I have with the goat lady, where we aim for an equal exchange (without worrying about measuring value).
I'll also mentioned that I have extra eggs about half the year and supply my neighbors and a friend; I have a small greenhouse and supply 3 people with seedlings in spring. One neighbor has a washing machine and a freezer that we all use. My husband uses his big old truck to haul gravel for our communal driveway. Nobody worries about whether these things get recompense.

Most recent: bartered our services and goods (herbalist consult and appropriate herbs) for ortho-bionomy sessions (a totally unexplainable feel-good session energetically somewhere between Reiki and chiropractic, hands on,  but gentle).  Score on both sides!  Which is what all good bartering should be.

I've battered many things! Mostly services. This isn't gifting things, but rather trading for specific things one party wanted and the other person found valuable/usable. Like "hey! I really want your manure for my garden, and if you load it into my truck with your tractor, I will make your favorite snack that you then don't have to buy this week."

1. Babysitting for massages,
2. Meal prep for weed pulling
3. House cleaning for massages,
4. Goat milk for massages! ($10 for every half gallon of goat milk, which my friend then marked on her calendar every time she shared, and saved up for a massage, which I then paid out.)
5. Frozen meat rabbits for making dinners,
6. Jars of honey for teaching yoga classes,
7. Sprinkler blow outs or repairs for no-bake cookies
8. Tree pruning in return for sharing apples
9. Staying at my place in return for labor on my projects

That's a little different than other group exchanges I've done, like a community fire cider class, where everyone brings an ingredient, and we all chop them up together, and put it into the jars and go home with a fabulous finished product! I've done the same with elderberry syrup and seed exchanges and clothing swaps.

As an oil painter, I’ve had more people want to barter for services rather than lay out hundreds of dollars.

My parents taught me decades ago to barter as much as possible.
I have bartered all my life.  When I was a kid shoveling snow to make some money, lots of people would trade things for the service, I always got some $ but lots of cool things, bicycle, radio's, camping equipment, knives and even a .22 rifle.
Two days ago I sold an interior door, new that I had for a couple years,  wanted $75 for it, gal offered $50, I asked what she might have to trade for the other part.  Settled on $50 and a box of ammunition for one of my pistols.  Win Win for me!!

A number of the barter arrangements I had were blown up by other people convincing the person I was bartering with that what they had was worth more than what I had, or just plain old greed.

A story to illustrate - I was trading auto/truck repair/maintenance with a young local vet who was just starting his practice locally. That went along for a few years until his wife convinced him he was getting the short end of the deal and was quite vocal about it and insisted they get paid. That was not the case on them coming up short, by a long shot, but, hey, OK, if you insist.  I cancelled that arrangement and paid them when I needed their services. Fast forward a few years and they were almost begging me to work on their stuff for payment, but, nope, see how you are and that's a hard no.  

Over the years I owned a couple of junkyards, and any auto hobbyist, racers, and the like were welcome to whatever parts they needed, no charge. I just asked them to send any junk cars and scrap my way. Boy, did they ever. That was a major source of scrap for many years.

Along the same lines, I would try non-hobbyists out by letting them have parts on credit.
Almost 100% they would never pay.

A funny side note. I had a number of dogs at the time and anyone they didn't like would always take a shot at doing me wrong eventually. The dogs were never wrong.

Another lesson learned....anyone who whined a lot about how broke they were and how everybody takes advantage of them would be the quickest to do you wrong given a chance at it.

To this day I just give people whatever they want/need if I can spare it and then see if they'll help me out later on.

This definitely sorts out who you can trust...or not.

L Fortney wrote:Hello All,

I am part of a barter group here in Ontario Canada. The concept is called a LETS( local economic trade system). We call ours the Saugeen Trading Community. You can google it and see what our mission statement, etc looks like. This group has been running for almost 40 years and we( hubby and I) have been a part of it for over 20. There are a lot of different barter systems out there. Most fail. The new ones are all online and it appears you give money to one source and they take care of the administration side of things. With our group, we have volunteers that we call the " core group" who get elected. They take care of all the administration. They are compensated a small amount in our currency "Saubucks" but it is mostly volunteer. We have market days 3 times per year and you can trade any other time as well. Happy to answer questions if anyone has them.

Love it!

Saubucks reminds me of Walts in an episode or two of Letters from Wingfield Farm if one wants a laugh.  We have the entire series on DVD (aired on CBC if I recall correctly, but that could certainly be wrong).

I think it works best if everyone is thinking win-win and / or an air of generosity.  I grew up in a small farming community in the 70s/80s and there was a lot of that.  Late in the harvest season, the farmers that were done would help the neighbours finish their harvest.  I can remember sometimes three or four combines (Dad had an International 914, nothing like the size of today's operators use) on a field.  I also think this concept, as others have touched on, is about community.  Social capital is one of the 8 forms of capital as I learned about when I took my PDC.  Since then, I've thought of the 8 forms of capital like wedges on a wheel - the more balanced the different forms are, the smoother the ride you will have in life.  It is also possible to exchange forms of capital - where I have an abundance, if I have an appropriate level of social capital, I can potentially exchange what I have in abundance for something that I have less abundantly.  Now, if we come together as a group (community), and combine our "wheels" of capital, and rely on each others' strengths, we can create a much bigger, hopefully better balanced, wheel of capital.

I think we are in the same boat as many where it's more like sharing with others without typically being a formal exchange.

All these posts talk about community and our STC (Saugeen Trading Community) is exactly that! Yes there is a formal process in place for trading but where it really shines is getting to know like minded people and helping out one another.

I've done a whole lot of bartering over the years. Even belonged to a barter club that, before the IRS took it out, had members like Goodyear, Pan Am and other big names. I traded for a nice set of tires and rims for my 69 Chev step-side at one of the Goodyear stores.

Recently, I repaired and finished a rocker from a woman's grandmother in trade for raw, local honey.

Then there is that I did my own spin on barter over the years. That is, I've bought a lot of things on, for example, a Sears charge card, but have never owned any credit/charge card.

The fist buy I made on a charge card was a wood jointer. The people couldn't afford to pay me the full amount of a job they wanted me to do, but they did have a Sears card. I told them I could let them have the job for, if memory serves, around $9.00 a month. They loved it. I pointed out that all they had to do was make the purchase of my jointer and we would call it good.

I still think it was a pretty clever way to go. If they people wouldn't, it would suggest there might be a problem for me, the little guy, to get the larger payments and I would pass on the deal, because I was just starting out and didn't want to carry their debt.

I bought my house vacuum and many other items that way too.

And on and on it goes.

If those pushing digital money got their way, we'd see a whole lot more barter, and a means of tracking trades. In other words, a different currency, which is what the barter club, mentioned above, did.

We have a special game we play at some of our Renaissance Faires, run by the Mongers Guild, called Norse tradeblanket.  Everyone brings things they'd like to barter/trade, and everyone takes turns putting something out on the blanket and we go around the circle and if we want to trade something we have for that item we describe it, the whole thing is both verbal and visual so all can participate.  Anyways once it gets back around the circle then the person who put forth their item for trade can either choose who to trade with, say "no trade" if they changed their mind because there's nothing they seek that was offered, or say "sweeten" if they need a little bit more to make the trade viable to them and then those who made trade offers can decide whether to add something more to their offer.  We all have so much fun!

I’ve been using bartering for some things for about 20 years now. Living in a small rural community, it’s not that difficult once you get the word out that you’re interested in bartering in place of paying cash, though I’m never unwilling to offer cash if that is what the other party really needs.. I just need to politely set my boundaries. First I want the trade to be fair for to both parties. And second, both parties need to be interested in the items/services being traded. I’ve often been offered things I don’t really want or need, so some negotiation is sometimes necessary. I’ve learned to be polite when saying no I’m not interested in that particular trade and then negotiate from there.

Sometimes barters work out, sometimes not. When I don’t feel the trade was fair to me, I simply don’t offer to trade again with that person. Unless of course they are willing to change their stance. Personally, I don’t assign a mental price tag to the trades. I don’t want to play that game where one of us will become offended because the other guy is perceived to have come out better fiscally. I simply refuse to set the stage for disappointment and competition.  

The only meat I buy from the store is Costco roast chicken  and bacon. And sometimes I can trade for local cured bacon. All other meats I either raise my own (lamb, turkey, chicken), hunt (pork, goat, mouflan), or barter for with either services or items (fish, beef, chicken). I often trade for bbq ribs from a local food truck. And I did happily snag a trade recently that included a package of Canadian bacon, a real treat.

I grow most of our own veggies and herbs. But I also weekly barter or trade at my booth at the farmers market for items I don’t produce myself (or could use more of). Last week I acquired honey, lychee, starfruit, pumpkins, sweet potatoes, avocados, and bananas via trades.

Bartering services and trading goods works for me. It keeps more real cash in my pocket that can be used to pay other bills I can’t use bartering/trading for. …….. can’t buy gasoline for the truck with a case of mangos, but it will get me lattes, ribs & potato salad for dinner, tacos, and such.

Barter/trade also means that both parties get more bang for their buck, so to speak. Neither person loses the 4.6% that usually would go to taxes. Sure, the government doesn’t like barter/trade systems because they don’t get their slice of the pie. But I live is a significantly depressed rural community, which also gets generally short changed on government tax spending, so I don’t feel guilty not supplying the government with the sales tax. That 4.6% is more apt to stay in our community.

Without barter/trade, it would be more difficult for us to get by. It isn’t cheap living where I am, so having a good barter/trade system in place makes living here affordable.

Today was our town’s market day. So today I had a lot of trades offered.
… bags of limes got me a Mexican meal for lunch, complete with rice & beans
… mangos turned into a quart of watermelon/lime drink
… a couple of papayas provided me my breakfast of spam & rice
… because of a previous lopsided trade, I got a free cup of coffee to go with breakfast
… assorted veggies and fruits got me a dinner of meatloaf, potato salad, and green salad.
… 10 pounds of salad tomatoes today will turn into an Indian meal for next week’s dinner

Plus I accepted some starfruit, limes, papayas, sapote, oranges, and grapefruits in exchange for my veggies. I had no trouble selling the fruits I had accepted in trade except for 2 grapefruits, which I will sell at next week’s market.

I also bartered some future services (canine nail trimming) in exchange for a sirloin steak. And a service call to a person’s garden to consult about their garden problems, which turned into a couple of full benches of bananas.

So a successful day of trade and barter provided me with some novel meals of foods that I didn’t raise myself. Plus some fruits I can add to my sale table. A great day!

Timothy Norton wrote:I haven't had a lot of luck with bartering but I have done essentially the adjacent.

It starts off with thinking of something that someone you know might want of yours, and gifting them that thing. I'm talking plant cuttings, extra eggs, or perhaps a few crocheted wash clothes that have been sitting around. They then end up gifting you something back. Gift giving isn't necessarily bartering but it seems to be things that we have in abundance that the other may not have. It is very sweet in any case.

Timothy's method is bang-on. If it's quid pro quo commerce, it gets pissy and lizard-brained. If it's gifties, it builds community first, and opens the door to sharing surplus, skills, and labour.

This may or may not fall into the category of bartering, but lately I've been offering to pay cash for more and more services/products. I've found a lot of folks and smaller businesses will offer 3%-10% off if you pay cash instead of card. I know they save on fees that way but I also think they see it as a way to get more repeat business (since they are doing you a favor by saving you money). I'm sure some also see possible tax saving opportunities as well.

Last week my mechanic took almost $100 off the $1400 of work they did to our truck because I was willing to pay cash.

Perhaps the barter is I give my time by going to the bank and withdrawing cash - you save money on fees (maybe taxes too) and get more repeat business. It's a win-win for both sides.