Does anyone do bartering anymore? I know Craigslist is probably the place to go now for bartering services, but I'm talking about old-school bartering, exchanging goods or services with no money involved whatsoever? This used to be a big thing with my grandfather. He would fix people's fences or do small home repairs and in return, they would give him things he needed for around The House or sometimes even groceries. I don't see this done too often these days. Have you ever bartered anything?
I actually did some bartering this weekend! Did a vendor's booth at an arts and crafts festival to try to market some of my handcrafted jewelry. A friend and her husband were doing one as well to sell their homemade candles, wax melts, lotions and other similar fragranced goodies (think homemade Scentsy lol). She checked my stuff out while we were in a lull and I checked theirs out too and she found a pair of earrings she loved and I found a scented soy candle I wanted for my living room so we bartered a swap! She wants some other pieces of mine and I loved the scents so we are working out a few future trades now.
My mom and neighbor always barter meals. I do not know who started this but when there is so much food cooked at our house, my mom always gives some to our neighbor. And she also does the same. I think this is an old school kind of bartering.
My friends and I do sometimes. It really isn't as common as it should be. At least, around here, anyway. Everyone just wants straight cash. I can't blame them really. Afterall, our entire society revolves around cash.
I think bartering services for stuff you need isn't all that common anymore. But bartering stuff you don't want for something you actually want — that now is getting to be rather trendy. There are numerous "swap" sites where you can exchange virtually anything [books, DVDs, clothes, etc] with others who want to part with things they don't need anymore. It certainly is a great way to save money because you not only get rid of something you don't need, in return you get something which you want.
I've recently exchanged my tablet for a smartphone, and I feel like my other trader was really disadvantageous in this deal! haha, I think I'm good at bartering, lol. Though, to answer to your question, I really don't do any kind of bartering anymore... it's completely pointless.
It's mostly-impossible, because most people at these places aren't directly paid 'what YOU pay them.' They're paid to obey the owners ... an example: one day I was shopping atLog In and their computers went down, so they couldn't OBEY THE OWNERS' COMMAND of 'recording all the purchases into the computer.' I TRIED to give them FIFTEEN DOLLARS for the ten-or-so dollar's worth of groceries I tried to take, but THEY WOULDN'T LET ME! And I couldn't wait the hours/minutes it would take for tech-support to get there and start the machines again (because it was the summer and was already to hot for me--an Oklahoma City-an without a car--to be walking the five-or-six blocks between the store & my apartment on the other side of the Oklahoma City University campus!), so I was forced to leave WITHOUT THE LIFE-SUSTANENCE I HAD TRAVELLED SO FAR TO OBTAIN! (It happened years ago, and only cost me spare-change (compared to my miraculous rebuilding-of-my-brain-stem)---a few dollars' worth of MIRACULOUS TRAVEL THROUGH THE HOT-HOT HEAT; and I probably contacted BUY FOR LE$$ about it earlier, but I don't remember if they ever repaid me and -writing about it fires-up the old hateful need for PAYBACK ) All because workers today serve the command to 'OBEY THEIR MASTERS' more than -to hold true to the Great Market-Law of the Universe (the basis of bartering)---Quid pro Quo
