Get Professional Services For Free By Bartering
Filed under: Frugal Living
Everyone has some sort of skill. Regardless of if you are a doctor, a lawyer, a bricklayer, or if you can just lift boxes, there is someone out there who needs access to your skills. In the corporate world, you trade access to these skills by the hour for a set amount of money. You then trade that money for goods and services from others. But if you take the money “middle man” out of the equation, you get down to a more pure transfer of services - bartering.
Bartering is a great way to get the services you need without having to spend much money. All it takes is an agreement between the two parties to exchange your goods or services for those of the other. While all skills are valuable, I’ve noticed that some - particularly related to computers - carry considerable more demand and value.
I have been doing some computer work on the side for friends, neighbors, and people from church for a while. Recently, I was called to do work on my pastor’s computer as I have been many times before. After completing the job, he asked if there was anything he or his wife could do to repay me. Since we are currently finishing our basement, we’re going to have to pick out colors soon and knowing that his wife is an interior decorator, I asked that she give us a color consultation so we get a nice color scheme down there and throughout our house. She agreed and we’ll have her over in the next month to go through our house and suggest a colors for the rooms we haven’t completed.
Ordinarily, a consultation for a whole house might cost a couple hundred dollars, but by agreeing to trade our services, we both got what we needed for free. That’s the beauty of bartering: Both parties get what they need without having to lay out any cash. True, there are some tax implications of bartering when you begin to implement it on a larger scale, but it’s a perfectly reasonable system of trade in a small, friendly environment.
If you ever need some home repair work done or maybe an an oil change, don’t be afraid to ask a professional if there is something you could do for them to offset some or all of your cost. You may have just the skill they’ve been looking for and both of you will walk away happy.
Have you ever bartered your skills for someone else’s or have any tips for a would-be barterer? Share your story in the comments!
October 24th, 2008 at 3:58 am
[...] unrelated topic - That One Caveman suggests that a great way to get professional services is to use the barter system. This of course assumes that you have some sort of professional service to offer and I’m [...]
October 24th, 2008 at 9:24 am
I like your suggestions. The problem I have is actually accepting a trade. I’m the kind of person that will do the work for free, because it’s fun for me, and when asked what the payment can be, I’ll just say “Don’t worry about it.”
I feel bad taking something from friends. I do computer work, Web design, etc., and have been asked by friends to do the work for them, in exchange for pay, and I just feel awful charging, so I give the work away.
My church is asking for Web work to be done, and they are asking for an invoice, but I feel horrible charging a church for things.
Don’t you ever feel like when someone asks you what they can do in return, they are secretly hoping you will just give the work away and not charge them or want bartering?
October 24th, 2008 at 1:06 pm
SharkGirl,
If I’m going into a task with bartering on the mind, I clearly lay out the expectations of the transaction before any work is complete. If I’m just doing something for someone else, I do it with the belief in communal support - I’m sure that I’ll need something from him later and he would be as willing to help me as I was of him. That’s how I approach things done for or through church.
For the people who ask me what they can do in return, I usually feel their being genuine. The easiest way to tell is how they react when you tell them “Don’t worry about it.” If they’re actually expecting you to request something in return, they’ll be honestly surprised and maybe even insistent.
October 24th, 2008 at 4:31 pm
They are insistent and feel bad that I didn’t take anything. Thank you for your article and your comments. In this economy, I suspect people will gladly welcome bartering. I’d like to get better at it.
October 26th, 2008 at 2:54 pm
Bartering will get more popular now than ever. What til Uncle Sam goes back to collecting tax money on it!
October 31st, 2008 at 10:56 am
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