Barter
Barter is simply trading one thing for another. And, in fact, it doesn’t even have to be a thing. It can be a skill, a service, or even information.
Barter can save you money, and increase your interaction with members of your community. It also lessens your need to make money to “get things.”
Now is a good time to begin to demonetize. Lessen your dependence on the financial system and its dollars, and increase your skills and relationships so that you can get the things and services you need by exchanging other things, services of your own, knowledge or anything else which might be considered of value. You’ll learn that members of a community can help one another without needing to use pieces of paper (with pictures of dead presidents) to validate the mutual help.
Economic sustainability isn’t just about money; it’s about knowledge, skills, and cooperation. It’s about being able to create and produce your own goods, either yourself or within your community. Nevertheless, some stuff is useful, and it doesn’t hurt, no matter how good or bad the times, to have supplies of necessities around the house.
Remember that bartering doesn’t have to be only in a one-on-one relationship. A mutual bartering system can be even more effective at the neighborhood or community level.
Running a barter network can also be an excellent form of self-employment. Barter is often confused with systems such as community currency. The difference is that barter involves only goods and services. Community currency, or systems such as LETS, involves either locally-printed currency or a computerized system to keep track of exchanges.
(For closely related information, see Local Currency.)
Barter with friends, neighbors and local businesses and services
You should have no problem finding people you already know to barter with. It’s really just an extension of giving away things you don’t need. Local businesses might have more need of services rather than things. Ask and see what they can use.
Join, or start, a barter network
Ask around to see if there is already a barter network in your community. There may actually be several. While there are statewide and nationwide barter exchanges, it’s best if you can keep most of your bartering at the local level. It helps build community, and it cuts down on transportation expenses and use of fossil fuels.
Develop a skill or product that you can use to expand your barter opportunities
Do an analysis of the skills you have already. If necessary, take a class to improve current skills or acquire new ones. Analyze the needs of people and businesses with whom you’d like to barter, and see if you can fill any of those needs.
A Small Lodge, the Great Depression, and Christmas
Small Masonic lodge in rural Virginia established a barter system to help its community through the hard times of the 1930s.
From Wikipedia
Barter – Relevance and Relation to Money
Is barter still relevant in the modern world? Links and history.
Fledgling businesses preserve cash by swapping services, goods online
Advice for online bartering but useful for face-to-face bartering as well.
The surreptitious world of under-the-table trading
