Originally posted by Victoria Meyers on http://tinyurl.com/2e3dg2z

Can a Mom Trade?

While we as a nation are finally seeing a bit of rebound and that the growth of new business and revenues are slowly increasing, she will be facing high costs to gain the further education and expenses needed to continue her successes. Maybe she’ll be lucky enough to barter her way to a successful career. Think I’m joking? Bartering is gaining a lot of popularity as more and more people find creative means to acquiring needs without paying the hard to get cash.

As millions of US Americans are still out of work and unemployment benefits ending, you’ve read my concerns on the demands of civic organizations and non-profit agencies waning on the abilities to pick up the numerous tabs of needs – and that’s just for basic necessities. What if an individual finds a way to excel himself raising his or her own productivity by offering a service in exchange to acquire a need that someone else has? It’s like taking your cow down to the market and when others can’t give you cold hard cash for a great product, what do you do? You trade it in for two pigs, some eggs and flour.

Now, what if we did that in today’s modern world of business? What if I needed a website built and Mr. IT Guy would be happy to build it for me, but he wants to find a piano tutor for his son and I happen to play piano! So, we trade! We both get what we need and no one pays the cash for it…just our own investment of time. But now, in the art of bartering, it’s not so practical if we each live on the opposite side of the country from each other. So, how do we make this practical? Time banks were developed and are now popping up all over the nation. Anyone can create a group associated with these Time Banks where members would actually invest their “time” by contributing X-Amount of labor hours of their work without getting paid. Let’s say, a hairstylist decides to become a member. This hairstylist would work for four hours each week cutting people’s hair without pay, but the hours are registered with the exchange. One day down the road, when the hairstylist is in need of a service, but cannot pay for it, he/she can then look into using his/her “time” investment dollars to pay for a “wedding cake”.

Originally posted on http://tinyurl.com/2bpl6pa

Barter Items to Strengthen the Trading System

Times are tough for many in today’s economy. There are many of us having trouble making our payments and adjusting our lifestyles to a new strict budget. This is in fact even more difficult for US companies in all areas of business.

Due to the recent decline in the economic health of the nation, businesses are feeling the dramatic slow down in spending by consumers. Even the leaders in major industries are feeling the pinch. As is usually the case, the economic problems are hurting small businesses the most.

Companies are trying to find new ways to create greater income. However, many independent business owners are finding that it is difficult to find a way to increase their income. While there are many possible options for doing this if you do enough research, the one that is the most prominent is barter trade exchange.

These trade exchanges make it possible for two people to barter items with each other. Bartering is an industry that is much less visible, you won’t see it on the front page of the newspaper. However, bartering has been used commonly by businesses for quite some time.

You might wonder how you go about researching a barter system. One can begin by entering buzzwords like “barter systems incorporated” into one of the popular search engines. You’ll be certain to get pages of results on trading. Read a number of them thoroughly. Each service will probably have a yearly or monthly charge, or even both. If you are reading carefully, in some cases you may notice they also require that you pay them a commission on all barter items you sell.

The benefit to be derived by this sort of trading is that you can barter items with those who have a similar goal. Such items can be actual merchandise or intangibles (e.g. services). Numerous individuals, including dentists and software professionals, can profitably utilize the barter system. For instance, a dentist may require a specialized program for his workplace at an affordable cost while the software expert needs dental work which he would find too costly since he is not covered by the appropriate insurance. These two could make an arrangement whereby they exchange the mutually necessary items.

Using a system where you barter items can help you build solid relationships. You could create a partnership within the exchange, expand your business, and potentially share in increased profits. Not only can you create strong network connections, but you could find someone who will end up as your go-to person for a specific product or service.

Originally posted by Hannah Wallace on http://www.realsimple.com/work-life/money/saving/barter-anything-00000000014565/page3.html

Tricks of the Trade

Follow these four steps when arranging a barter to ensure that both sides get a sweet deal.

Step 1: Figure Out What You Want to Get?and What You Can Give.
The first part is easy. Maybe you’re looking for a yoga class or interior-decorating help. The challenge is working out what goods or services you can exchange in return. Tapping into your professional expertise or considering what you studied in college is an obvious place to start. But also ask yourself:

• What would you sell if you were having a garage sale tomorrow? Is any of it worth trading?
• What hobbies could you teach someone?
• Could you craft something to swap? (A pair of hand-knit mittens? A photo book or a scrapbook?)
• Which common chores do you enjoy? (People have performed tasks as random as pulling weeds.)

Don’t forget: Everyone has something to offer

Step 2: Identify a Trading Partner.
Make a list of friends, colleagues, or existing business clients who might have what you want and want what you have. Two years ago, Jennifer Garcia, a baker based in Dallas, was looking for someone to update her website regularly, so she offered her friend Sharon Harvey, a website designer, unlimited cakes and baked goods to do the job. The ongoing arrangement has “worked wonderfully,” says Harvey, saving both women hundreds of dollars.

Coming up blank on people you know? Try one of these more organized ways to find a match.

• Join a local bartering club. Groups like Kirschner’s exist in towns and neighborhoods across the country, bringing people together to swap goods and services. Some are conducted online, others in person, and many are spread by word of mouth. So check the notice boards at schools, cafés, and community centers.
• Join a Time Bank. It works like this: You register (for free) at your local Time Bank’s website and list the services you have to offer. For each hour of work you provide to another member, you earn a “time dollar,” redeemable for any service someone else has listed on the site. Find a Time Bank in your area, or learn how to start your own, at timebanks.org.
• Visit specialized bartering websites. New niche sites have sprung up where you can exchange almost anything: kids’ gear, legal services, cars, you name it. (For a few to try, see Online Trade, at the end of this article.)

Step 3: Pop the Question.
Bartering in a club or online? Skip to step 4.

But what if you want to offer, say, your accountant the use of your season tickets to the theater in exchange for doing your taxes? Just ask, advise the pros. Antonio Puri, an artist based in Philadelphia, was in his dentist’s chair, absorbing the news that he needed a root canal and a crown, when he noticed there were no paintings on the office walls. “So I said to my dentist, ‘You need art. How about doing a trade?’?” Puri says. The dentist visited his studio, found a $1,200 painting he liked, and accepted it as payment for the two procedures.

Step 4: Hammer Out the Details.
Whether you’re bartering one-on-one, through a group, or online, set the terms of the deal up front.

• Assess the dollar value of your goods or service. Trading something tangible, like a sofa or a bike? Research the price of similar items. If you’re swapping a service, figure what you would usually charge, factoring in supplies. Then make an even exchange?for example, a $60 birthday cake for three $20 manicures; eight hours of piano lessons for eight hours of math tutoring.
• Don’t forget the tax man. In some cases, the law requires you to report bartering transactions on your tax return. “That doesn’t mean you have to declare swapping babysitting with a neighbor,” says Anthony Burke, an Internal Revenue Service spokesman. “But a barter between businesses is considered taxable income.” If you barter regularly, consult an accountant.
• Set the time frame. Decide how long you and your bartering partner will need to fulfill your part of the deal, and set a deadline. If it’s ongoing, set a review date to make sure you’re both still happy.
• Put it in writing. Take it from Nina Wurtzel, a New York City photographer who shot and designed a brochure for a local salon in exchange for services: “I wound up revising the brochure several times, but I received only one cut and color.” If the deal will last longer than one exchange, send an e-mail saying, “This is what I will do and what you will do in this time period,” says Amy Belanger, deputy director of Green America, a nonprofit that supports bartering as part of environmental sustainability. But if it is worth a lot of money or is ongoing, she suggests a signed agreement. The hallmark of a successful barter? If both parties are willing to do it again. “Once you start,” says Belanger, “it becomes part of your lifestyle.”

Originally posted by Jennifer Roe on http://www.nj.com/shopping/index.ssf/2010/06/the_art_of_the_barter.html

I honestly never thought much of bartering. I had a very narrow idea of what it was. Visions of farmers offering up baskets of eggs and home knit blankets to the old doc who made house calls, sprang to mind. I have no chickens and I don’t know how to knit, so what could I possible barter? Turns out – a lot.

I like to (or can) write, bake, grocery shop, run errands and babysit. I can walk a dog, create a power point presentation, teach you to save thousands of dollars a year in coupons and that’s just for starters.

While I may not be offering up a grocery run or a coupon lesson to an old doc who makes house calls, I certainly can find another mom to “swap” babysitting services with – one of my favorite ideas from the article.

And then there are swap parties. Find a few friends who are sick of some of their clothes, accessories, pocket books, dishes etc… invite them over, bring out your old stuff – put all said stuff out on a table and swap away! At the end of the swap, consider bagging up anything left over and donating to your favorite local thrift store.

Have you ever bartered? Maybe you’ve been bartering for years – have any tips?

Originally posted by Sequoia on http://www.favstocks.com/how-to-save-money-by-bartering/0316204/

How to Save Money by Bartering

Something people generally do not think about is that they can save money with bartering. By exchanging services with a friend or relative rather than paying a stranger or a business, both you and the person you are bartering with get something you need without spending as much, if any, money.

Think about What You Need
What services or products do you need? This will greatly affect who you can potentially barter with and how you can accomplish the barter. If you need work done on your house, you could offer your web design services to help the person who works on your home to get more business.

Depending on what you have to offer and what you need, you may find it harder to barter, but you can advertise in various places online and in person to help you get it done.

Originally posted by Mark Boyle
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2010/jun/02/mark-boyle-moneyless-man-food-for-free?showallcomments=true#end-of-comments

Moneyless man reveals how to live a cashless life without starving

For most of us, food comes in plastic packets from the supermarket. A friend, who runs tours of an organic farm for school children, gives much anecdotal evidence of this. One week, while pointing to a rosemary bush, he asked the kids if anyone knew what it was. After 20 seconds, one 12-year-old raised his hand and proclaimed it to be “corned beef”. Worse still, none of the others laughed.

The answer to this FAQ is in the query itself – I eat from the earth. Food is free, and indiscriminately so. The apple tree doesn’t ask if you’ve got enough cash when you go to pick its fruit; it just gives to whoever wants an apple. We are the only species, out of millions on the planet, that is deluded enough to think that it needs money to eat. And what’s worse, I often observe people walking straight past free food on their way to buy it from all over the world via the supermarket.

There are four legs to the money-free food table. The most exciting, and my favourite, is foraging, which originally meant to wander in search of food and provisions, but is used these days to describe the act of picking and eating wild foods. Although this can take a lifetime to learn, anyone can start today. I’d recommend picking up a pocket-sized book called Food for Free by Richard Mabey (sourced for free via Read It Swap It) or perhaps taking a weekend course with people such as the BBC’s “roadkill chef” Fergus the Forager, before hitting the hedgerows.

At the moment look out for giant puffballs, bristly ox-tongue and rocket, the latter often found in the cracks between walls and paths in cities. If you need any more excuse to hit the coast, now is the perfect time to collect seaweed. The real beauty of wild food is not only that it’s highly nutritious and ecologically sound, but that picking it is also a fantastic excuse to go adventuring with friends.

Great Britain has been tamed, so its remaining wilds could no longer feed its population. This makes the next leg – growing your own food – crucial, both in terms of tackling climate change and rebuilding a resilient local food network. Whether it be on your kitchen windowsill, in your back garden, or on the allotment, start with whatever you can manage. Choose crops you love eating and if you are time poor, choose varieties that require little work. Not only will you reduce your food miles and packaging, you’ll also get to eat food that tastes of your own sweat, a flavour no spice can match.

Growing and foraging all your calorific needs is a huge task, especially without fossil fuel inputs such as fertiliser. This is where the third leg comes in: bartering. Bartering can either be an exchange of food, especially in the summer when many people have gluts of one crop or another, or an exchange of skills for food you can’t get elsewhere without money. In many ways barter is just an awkward form of money and lacks the deeper benefits of doing something completely for free (such as you do with close family and friends), and it brings up the age old problem of “the double coincidence of wants”, where both parties have to have something the other desires. But it has got huge benefits. Not only does it localise the economy, it helps build bonds between neighbours, leading eventually to communities that are more resilient to external shocks; societies where friendships, not cash, are seen as security.

Originally posted by Finnella Naughton
http://barteringtoday.wordpress.com/2010/05/26/can-bartering-save-you-money

Bartering has proved to be an efficient way to ease money flow issues for established and expanding businesses. It also helps in building a customer base for new businesspeople and provides an online presence. In Bartering business, you can trade everything from landscaping, office supplies, printing, web design, the list goes on… Bartering is proving itself to be an economical and reasonable way to save cash. In fact, Bartering is everywhere, even in our homes. Bartering is part of our lives, though often un-noticed. We already Barter in different ways. Bartering is present in different magnitudes, from our homes to a well established business.

If we know the right way to Barter, many resources and possibilities will be opened up to us. It is an excellent way to take care of our needs while also offering others what they require, and all without exchanging money. On a wider and professional scale, we will be able to offer our services, as well as products we no longer need, in return for getting from others the services and products that they no longer need. Bartering can help us become a successful trader without involving money.

Posted on May 13th, 2010
http://thesmarterwallet.com/2010/bartering-haggling-less-money

Bartering is an age old skill that we could all make use of a bit more these days. Once you consciously think about bartering, you end up using it a lot more. And – the more you use it, the better you get at it.

Bartering vs Haggling: How To Get Things For Less Money

Bartering is very simple because you don’t have to worry about money. This makes it a good tool because you know you can still do certain things without needing cash all the time.

But it’s important to recognize the difference between bartering and haggling. Some people think they are one and the same thing but they’re not. Haggling is the art of negotiating for a better price, whereas bartering is a form of trade. Both are ways to get things for less money, but achieved through different methods. Haggling requires a confidence you don’t yet have. Bartering means that you have on hand something that the other person wants as well though, otherwise the whole thing doesn’t work.

Bartering means to swap something you don’t want with another person. Skills and goods both work, and once you get better at it you will hopefully save even more money each month. And at the same time you can help out some other people in the process. What could be better?

Posted on May 4th, 2010
http://forex-arbitrage.org/online-barter-a-new-way-to-save-and-make-money

When most people think of barter, they think of a very primitive form of trade. Maybe you give your neighbor tomatoes from your garden in exchange for him shoveling snow from your driveway. Barter can be this simple, but in the information age it can also be much more.

Barter can essentially be done the same way people buy and sell online, whether at online stores or auction sites. The difference is, instead of using cash money, you barter goods and services. There are barter exchanges that have their own currency that you can use to trade with other members.

What are some of the advantages of online barter? First of all, you get to benefit from the global nature of the internet. Traditionally, barter was done within a confined area, perhaps between neighboring tribes. Today, however, you can barter with anyone, anywhere, whether you are in the UK, India, the US or Australia.

The main advantage to barter is that you can acquire products and services you want for yourself at a fraction of the usual cost. Using online barter currencies, you can trade items that have nothing whatsoever in common with people anywhere in the world. For example, if you happen to be an artist or crafts person, you could make a trade with someone who owns a travel agency, perhaps exchanging a painting for a weekend stay at a resort.

Like any other way of doing business, there’s a bit of a learning curve when it comes to barter. You can start small, within your comfort zone and gradually scale it up. There is no need to make any large investments, as barter can be done at any level. If you are interested, you may want to learn more about getting in on the ground floor of this exciting new 21st Century version of an ancient business practice!