This is a guest post from Jessica who blogs at Never Paying Full Price Again. You can read more of Jessica’s story in the Centsable Savings Stories post about her frugal journey.
What do you do with all those items you got for free or pennies on the dollar? We have a stockpile pantry in our basement. We keep all of our toiletries and cleaning supplies in it. We have more than enough stockpiled for ourselves, but we put the excess to good use. We donate, help needy families and make gift baskets from our excess.
Another excellent use for a stockpile is bartering. We barter regularly with my brother and his girlfriend and our babysitter. Bartering is defined as trading goods or services without the exchange of money. This works well for us at any time but even more so when we have little extra money for items or services we need. In the past, we have bartered our stockpile items for snow removal service, tree trimming service, a new muffler on my car and a new serpentine belt on my husband’s jeep.
For services such as vehicle repair or repairs to the house, we barter with my brother. To trim the trees, he charges a shampoo, a conditioner, a new razor and laundry detergent. We barter based on the hours he puts in with his service, and we pay with items worth the amount he charges hourly. The four items listed above would have cost him around $20 and he charges $10 per hour for his services so for two hours of work he gets the above items. It is a good deal for him and a great deal for us. I got the shampoo, conditioner and razor free (only paying tax after coupons) and paid very little for the laundry detergent.
With our babysitter we barter a reduced price in her charges for the week for items from the stockpile, most often food items. Generally this discount is $1 per item. We also exchange food items. Recently, I bartered a case of canned carrots from her for half a case of canned fruit.
Not only is bartering good for your checkbook, it is good for building relationships. Bartering builds teamwork. We plant a small garden each year. One of the items we plant is radishes. My father in law loves radishes, but his ground is not good for growing radishes. We grow the radishes and barter other vegetables we need that he can grow for the radishes we grow. This year we have expanded our garden and are sharing our produce with our neighbor. In exchange for produce she has offered to help weed the garden and harvest the vegetables. We barter every winter with our other neighbor as well. He drives a dump truck, and in this climate his truck needs to be plugged in overnight during the cold months of the year so it will start in the morning. He plugs his truck into our garage outlet in the evening and in exchange for using our electricity (our average bill goes up $15-$20/month and he does this for two months), he fills in our driveway every spring with gravel and will also bring home black dirt or big rocks for me to use in the landscaping. Our family has an excellent relationship with both of these neighbors since we started bartering.
Bartering is an excellent tool all around for every party involved.
Jessica is a not-quite-30 wife and mother to two girls. She works part-time out of the house. The family lives in rural Wisconsin with their three cats and one dog. When she is not hunting for deals, she enjoys blogging, photography, taking walks with the family and working in the yard. Check out her blog at http://ttbdf.blogspot.com/.
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