4 Ways to Use Bartering to Save Money

Bartering is simply another name for trading. The American Indians used Wampum to trade. The West Africans traded in metallic objects called Manillas and the Fijians traded using whale teeth. Other groups traded in amber, ivory, cattle, oxen, pigs, stones such as jade and quartz and more.

When purchasing an item with money you do not know the true value or the true cost of the item purchased due to importing, exporting, manufacturing costs, etc. If consumers knew, the true cost to manufacture an item compared to the sales price they would be shocked. 

When bartering you always know what your product and service is worth and you know what your time is worth. You have to know the value of your product or service and the value of the product or service you want to barter. 

If you are a tax preparer and charge $300 to prepare taxes no matter what the deductions and time it takes to prepare the taxes then try to determine an hourly rate. For example, you could charge $30 an hour for 10 hours’ worth of tax preparation work.  If you want to barter with a lawn care provider who charges $150 to provide extensive lawn care. The lawn care provider needs to determine his or her hourly rate, which could be $30 for 5 hours of work or $30 per hour. So now, when you barter you can request 10 hours of work from the lawn care provider ($300) to match your tax preparer fee of $300.

Bartering has been used for centuries to exchange goods and services. It is a great way to save money on personal and business expenses. Here are four easy ways to use bartering to save money.

1. Use barter networks such as barternews.com.
2. Create your own bartering system with parents, colleagues, friends or service providers that have businesses or who can provide a skill, product or service that you want or need.
3. Join bartering groups on websites such as meetup.com.
4. Negotiate medical services. ITEX Corp. has 24,000 members where patients can exchange medical good and services for barter dollars but is usually limited to dental or smaller doctor practices.