subject: Learn About Local Trading [print this page] In today's struggling economy you might want to try local trading to meet your personal and business needs. Why not access like minded people in your community to save cash.
Here are some examples of how my family has saved money trading services.
1. My wife has provided child care services for a local accountant and she does our families taxes.
2. The accountant's husband is a mechanic and he fixed my wood splitter recently. These trades aren't always equal in value, so some cash does sometimes trade hands.
3. A group of friends share major tools like: rototillers, polesaws and woodspliters. None of us really use any of these tools very often or intensely, so the tools will provide many years of service. But it does save the expense of each of use buying or renting these tools. You guessed it my mechanic friend does most of the servicing and repairing and the rest of us pitch in with parts.
There are ways to contact people outside of your group of friends. Try some of the following:
Keep an eye on the local public bulletin boards. There are many in our community. If you don't know where to find them in yours try these locations: grocery stores, public parks, schools and restaurants.
If you own a business, or even if you don't, join the local chamber of commerce.
Start attending a place of worship.
Take a college, junior college, or adult school class to meet others - some classes are free.
Join a service organization.
Have business cards made. Include contact information and skills on a card even if you don't have a business.
Local trading could not only be profitable, but fun.
Stan is a teacher and coach in Oakhurst, CA, from where he authors articles online to help people cope with our struggling economy through the use of alternate means of doing business, such as bartering.
There are, of course, down sides available to hiring local people too. I wish I did not have to say it, but the truth is that local people tend to go into a huddle when there are problems, and protect each other's interests regardless of the truth. My job takes me all over Surrey, and there have even been occasions in my career in interior decorating when I have suspected that the whole thing was a deliberate cover-up, but I was too deep into the project to pull out.
The safest way to avoid this type of situation is to employ recommended local tradespeople only. This is fine in principle, until you realise that nobody in a close-knit community is going to let one of their associates down, especially if the person asking questions comes from a well-known place like Guilford or even London. I prefer to get my recommendations for quality tradesmen from an independent website found at mr-skill.co.uk. They maintain a listing of every trade that you could think of, handily sorted by postcode to make things even easier.
A good tradesperson is like pure gold; hard to find, hard to keep and worth every penny. Your chances of finding a genuinely recommended tradesman are far better when you use a professional listing service, as opposed to believing local gossip. You can trust me on this - I used to make the same mistake myself.
