No Cash? No Problem! Wanna Trade?

My husband is a stonemason. In the past few months, he has agreed to build a patio for a friend who repaired our car and fix and rebuild a walkway for my dentist in exchange for a crown, root canal, and silver filling replacement. He has traded small repair jobs with his friend, an architect, who in turn has provided drawings and layout designs for various projects my husband is working on. Even at home in the communal household I share with my sister and her family, we work on trade: my sister and her husband buy all the groceries, and my husband and I do all the cooking.

We’re not alone.

CNN is reporting that families everywhere are jumping on the bartering bandwagon as cash becomes ever scarce and people are offering their sweat equity in its stead.

A group in Atlanta, USA, calling themselves the YOUMEs, gathers once a week in a member’s backyard to discuss what needs they may have and what services they might offer. There are even businesses whose sole purpose is to facilitate these barters, among them Green Apple Barter Services in Pittsburgh and SwapThing.

“There’s a scarcity of money and jobs,” says Dr. David Epstein, a member of YOUMEs. “But we still have ourselves, our skills and our relationships. And we know that if we offer those, we’ll get something back.”

Our first barter was a surprise; my dentist casually asked one day if my husband was still doing masonry. Now, however, I look for it. When a friend mentioned that her husband, an auto dealer service manager, was starting to “freelance” on Saturdays, I immediately scheduled an appointment for my car, desperate for an honest mechanic. And when the same friend mentioned that her husband was planning on building a small patio himself, I offered up my husband. I ended up paying less than $U300 for parts for repair work that would have cost more than $U1,000 at the shop.

Now if only the preschool needed some stonework…