Barter Networks: Deal or No Deal?

I received a $100 coupon the other day to cover the cost for our home-based business (family entertainment) to join the Hometown Barter Network in our area. Now, we rural homesteaders and small producers in several counties here in the southern Appalachians have been practicing informal bartering since forever, negotiating our trades of goods and services for other goods and services without any formalized valuation system. Meaning that what a person who has something I need will take from me in “fair trade” is something we work out for ourselves the old-fashioned way.

This has worked well on many occasions, and we’ve even been known to make good use of the area’s Freecycle network and even Craigslist freebies when we can. But things come and go on those lists and I still haven’t been able to obtain the metal fence poles I need to properly repair bear damage to the garden fence done two years ago.

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Filed under Activities, Alternatives, Homestead, Independence, Taxes, Trade | Comment (0)