Tips on Tuesday: Bartering

It's an age-old theory, but one that works well for me. I barter for things. I barter with my neighbor who has an in-home daycare. I watch her daycare kids on occasion for an hour or so and she watched Rebekah for me for the 10 hours we were gone last week.

My same neighbor and I are now swapping our own children for date nights. I watched her kids on St. Patrick's day for them to go out with their friends and she watched my kids this weekend so Sean & I could have a date night. We were able to go to the movies and have a sit down dinner served on plates with silverware instead of eating a meal wrapped in paper. Since we didn't have to pay a sitter an additional $20-25-30+, we could have a really nice date.

I have bartered computer work for music lessons for many years. I do flyers, newsletters, registrations, etc., etc., etc. and in exchange, we take my hourly rate and apply it to the children's music lessons.

I bartered with the diaper service to go do their setups for them and in return I got discounted (or free) diapers and could apply my 'paycheck' to my account balance.

I'm working with a company now to see if we can barter my time for updating their website and creating some flyers for either drum or guitar lessons for my boy(s).

How do I find these things? A lot of them I sort of fell into. I hear somebody talking about how they need help with XX and I contact them privately to see what their needs are and if they would consider a bartering system. Once you barter with one company, the network can work for you. I tell people, if you hear of somebody needing computer help, tell them you have a friend who would trade them for that. You have to know your skills and what you could do that would be of value to another person.

For example, I've worked daycare in the past so going to my friend's house for an hour or two is not a daunting task. I know it's something I can do and I'm pretty good at it.

How (and what) do you barter? I'm always looking for new ideas.