Over 26,000 US Businesses That Accept Barter

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Dutch Barter System Challenges Bankers

My name is Anthony Migchels and I am the initiator of the "Gelre," the first Regional Currency in the Netherlands.
My organization is a foundation, not for profit, not a company, because I believe credit should be a public facility, serving the people that actually OWN the credit, instead of milking them dry with what is rightfully theirs. The Gelre foundation is run by a board of three.

We now have almost a hundred companies participating and the break even point should come at about 300, after that we can get an income out of it. But the real goal is, to hook up 66% of all companies in Gelderland, a province in the Netherlands with 1.2 million inhabitants and 60k companies. A GDP of about 40 billion Euro.

It is clear that interest bearing debt to a bank as money is a vicious hoax, but strangely enough, few have been developing a viable alternative.'

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Make Purchases Without Cash - Barter

Tina Ames owns the Craftsmen Cafe, a Clarence, N.Y. eatery that specializes in organic comfort fare such as chicken soup and apple pie. Recently she needed to replace her restaurant's roof, a $7,000 job. Ames was loath to part with that much cash and didn't want to take out a loan.

Her solution? She cut a deal with a local contractor who handled the roofing job in exchange for a Ford F-150 pickup that Ames no longer needed. "I grew up on a farm," she says. "If you had eggs and someone else had corn, you traded. It's an old way of doing things, and it makes a lot of sense."

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Alternative Currencies Grow in Popularity

Most of us take for granted that those rectangular green slips of paper we keep in our wallets are inviolable: the physical embodiment of value. But alternative forms of money have a long history, and appear to be growing in popularity. It's not merely barter, or primitive means of exchange like, say, seashells or beads. Beneath the financial radar, in hip U.S. towns or South African townships, in shops, markets, and even banks, throughout the world people are exchanging goods and services via thousands of currency types that look nothing like official tender.

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Dan and Gemma Scott Saved Thousands Of Pounds On Their Wedding By Bartering

The couple managed to cut their cost of their wedding by more than £9,000 after they decided to barter for the church, the reception, the cars and the photographs.
Dan, 31, a plumber and part-time firefighter and his fiancee Gemma, also 31, a part time catering assistant, worked free of charge for local businesses in exchange for free or discounted use of their facilities on their big day.

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This is going to happen more and more in coming months and is probably one of the best ways of trading!

Think about what you have to offer and what you want in return and you will be surprised how many people will be willing to barter with you

No Cash? No Problem, If You Barter

Miriam Brown has always wanted to visit Cape Cod, but when she recently began to plan a trip and found out she would have to pay $200 or more a night for lodging, her dream vacation seemed out of reach.

Miriam Brown and her husband bartered their services for room and board on Cape Cod.

Brown, who lives in New Orleans, Louisiana, is an accountant. Her husband is a home renovations contractor.
Like many people dealing with a soft real estate market and high food and gas prices, they just don't have that kind of extra cash for a trip.
"I have traveled a lot in prior years, but after [Hurricane] Katrina, there's just no money for traveling," Brown said.
So she still plans to go, but she won't spend any cash at all on lodging.
Brown has joined the growing ranks of Americans who are bartering -- trading goods and services without exchanging money -- as a way to cope with tough economic times.
Brown posted an ad in the barter section of the online community Craigslist last month, offering to trade her accounting skills and her husband's knack for home repairs in exchange for room and board on Cape Cod, Massachusetts.
She has lots of company.

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