August 15, 2008
This is our type of economy - trading goods for goods.
View Video SIX EGGS FOR A PINT OF BEER
What's In Your Wallet?
Are you growing a local economy? Have you barter, swapped, traded lately?
Food, goods and services are like the commerical says "priceless."
16 Comments: "HOMEGROWN ECONOMY" »
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This spring I bartered two loaves of my homemade, multigrain, organic bread for four retirement-age laying hens. They're Red Stars and they still lay eggs like champs. We rotate them daily in a mobile pen and mobile coop, all around the perimeter of our garden, on our untreated lawn. Seems like a pretty good trade to me. The girls concur. (They would otherwise have been chicken stock by now.)
-Kate
The Phoenix Permaculture Guild's booth at our downtown farmers market (Phoenix, AZ) is often a swapping point for our members to trade excess with each other. Some people negotiate specific trades while others just pay it forward and give things away, hoping that others do the same. If there's an overabundance, it is also for sale.
This week I know some canteloupe that are getting traded for acorn squash, some limes are showing up for sale and various seeds are being swapped.
http://www.phoenixpermaculture.org
DH barters for stuff, we usually do skills for items. Right now he's trading some website coding for a camera.
Just this week we swapped labor that we needed at the bookstore for 2 of dh's books from his series that the young man wanted. We both benefited. We often trade books for things.
We have been bartering more than usual lately. Everybody's short on cash so it works out! My music teacher husband is giving clarinet lessons to our friend/chiropractor's daughter in exchange for chiropractic adjustments. Two 1/2 hour lessons = one adjustment. Why exchange money if you don't have to?! In general we are just starting to think this way more. I think others are too.
The government will not be happy that they aren't getting their cut of every transaction.
Yesterday I traded Brocolli floweretts for half a big yellow watermelon. I love to barter & am trading beans for calanders to be used as Christmas gifts.
My favorite story involves a fellow who came to my house a year ago to pick up some bricks we gave away on SGV Freecycle (www.freecycle.org) . . . the next year he happened to come to pick up some computer cables I also freecycled. Apparently he used the bricks to help create a community garden, and had just come from *your place* dropping off some greens . . . and came away with some eggs . . . which, unbidden, he left some for us when he picked up the cables . . . Pretty cool . .
We barter crafts from our website all the time. It's a great way to get what you want in a tight economy.
I trade thru my neighborhood timebank... such as one hour I spend setting up the neighborhood farmers market is used to "buy" one hour of Spanish lessons for my daughter. It's a great system, and a wonderful way to meet your neighbors!
I've been bartering and trading more this year too. I keep a friend's son while she works , we barter sometimes. She gets me local honey , it's better than money.
My Sister loaned me her pressure canner and I gave her some potatoes for her soup. A win/win for both of us.
I think in today's economy , we'll see lots of bartering , trading going on.
~ Blessings ~
JoyceAnn
I swapped some of my free range eggs for some local naturally farmed beef mince. This works for me, as I can't afford and don't have space for half a cow, but my neighbours do, and I have chickens and they don't! Everyone happy. I'm just hoping their mango tree produces well this summer.
My son and I incubate/hatch chicken eggs for others but, we only accept barter for our services. Some people look dumb founded when you say "No we don't accept $'s". But, it has lead to some very great trades. We have gotten horse rides on the northern coast, fresh fruit & vegitalbes......
Have A GREAT Day!
Frank
My husband (chiropractor) and I (massage therapist) have always bartered for other professional services and goods. We have two girlfriends that own a salon and I get hair and facials. We have gotten a few rooms of carpet and lots of just-off-the-boat jumbo pink gulf shrimp (YUM!) Hopefully we will start having excess in the garden we can use as currency! Happy Harvesting!
I've been bartering veggies for fruit this summer, and it has worked out great! It sure helps neighbors be more neighborly, something that is getting lost in the world of the individual, tvs, and cars zooming by. Also, I traded a music gig for a web ad for my music services, and that has really worked out in getting me many music jobs. Also, here in the wine country of N. CA. when a winery doesn't have a lot in the budget to pay cash, I get them also throw in some wine as compensation, and that's always great, too.
My neighbors and I have been bartering ever since we moved to the country. They help us with a chicken coop and we help them. We have extra wire for their compost heap they have extra chicks for out chicken coop. They made too much food this night. We make dinner the next night. Some salad for half a homegrown cataloupe. Excess Egg plant, tomatoes. okra and corn for homemade bread. Teach them to make butter and loan them the churn...we get some butter. Aunt traded apples for salad, oregano and scuppernong grapes. . And my co-workers and I have been trading for years. I bring in valunteer cherry tomato plants and get a can of salsa. Bring in extra garlic and they bring in habnero peppers. If it can be bartered it will be done!
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