Barter, Trade, Exchange

Barter, it’s a hot-topic these days and all over the news because of the uncertain economy and rising unemployment. This post accompanies a sister article I wrote earlier: Barter: What is Barter Exactly? and will hopefully fill in some extra blanks in your knowledge-gap. To avoid repetition, if you don’t know what barter is, I suggest you read that article first, then read this one.

Barter is not only the oldest and most proven form of commerce, it is most likely the simplest. Prior to highly-organized national barter companies, that make bartering extremely easy and effective for their members, barter (or trading, as it is otherwise known) dealt predominantly with small amounts/ transactions (usually well below $400.) For simplicity’s sake, I shall stick to individual, or one-to-one barter in this post, and save a discussion about barter exchanges for another.

“A dollar saved is a dollar earned,” as the saying goes. This is something barter is exceptionally good at helping you do, and because it doesn’t involve money, it is a great method to either improve cash flow, or to conserve your cash.

A number of factors have to be present in order for a ‘trade’ to work:

1. You have to have a need (for a good or service)
2. You must be able to offer something else of value in exchange
3. There needs to be another party offering what you need
4. The other party must want what you are offering, and
5. The timing and quantity must match

Because of this seemingly insurmountable list of requirements, very often it is just easier to spend cash, and is the reason for monetary systems’ popularity (and the need for barter companies.) For this reason, the vast majority of independent trades happen by accident – or increasingly via the likes of Craigslist in their “barter” section.

Let us use an example to demonstrate how barter works, if the five criteria above are fulfilled. Patricia is a stay-at-home mom that has a strong talent for making very nice cakes. She needs some curtains for her windows. On chatting to a neighbor – who just so happens to be a very competent seamstress – she discovers her daughter is getting married and needs a wedding cake made. In this barter situation, Patricia offers to make the wedding cake in exchange for her neighbor making the curtains. It’s a win-win, both save the cash expense involved, or the hassle of trying to do it themselves.

How does this work for a business? The dynamics are identical, but the potential benefits are greater. Allow me to explain once more with a simple example. Joanne is a florist. She takes her delivery van to a local mechanic for a check-up. Whilst there she discovers Henry, the owner of the repair shop, is in the dog house for forgetting his anniversary. In this scenario Joanne gives Henry a nice floral bouquet in exchange for his fixing her van.

The obvious benefits are cash conservation, since a $50 bunch of flowers doesn’t cost Joanne $50, and likewise the repairs don’t cost Henry the amount he charges a client, otherwise niether company would make any profits. The less obvious benefits are the introduction of new customers (they are now aware of each others businesses and may potentially recommend their friends and famliy to each other), in addition they both became more efficient, moving a surplus (in Henry’s case unused time, and in Joanne’s case perishable inventory.)

The transaction is literally that simple. It’s putting together the five criteria that causes the trouble, and what if you want to barter a larger transaction, say a $35,000 printing job, or a $20,000 roof, or a new car, a hot tub, or a vacation. How could Henry, Patricia, or any of our other characters in our examples pull that off? That’s where a good quality barter exchange would come in, and that will be the topic of one of my next blogs.

If you are suffering the problem of excessive debt, you should check out all possible credit card debt reduction tips. Not using your credit cards impulsively, controlling your credit card usage and restricting it to only essentially expenses, cutting down on the number of credit cards in your hand and prompt repayment of the balance amount owed are some useful tips.

However, what if you are in a position so bad that you are not able to make regular repayments? What do if you do not have sufficient income and you are finding it difficult to make ends meet? In such a scenario, standard credit card debt reduction tips will not be of any use. It presupposes the steady income and just the problem of indiscipline the part of the lender.

If you want to overcome your credit card debt problem even when you do not have a steady income, you should try card debt negotiation. As the phrase suggests, you shall negotiate with your lenders and seek a reduction in the total amount owed. It is a survival tactic where you point out that any further pressure is only going to push you over the edge.

Of course, the lenders need not accept your words at face value. In such a scenario, they will put pressure and try to find out whether you are really in need of debt relief or not. Once you are satisfied, you can easily proceed to get a fifty to seventy percent discount. If you are not confident of doing a good job of convincing your lenders, you can make use of professional debt relief service providers.

Or, you can open an escrow account and deposit money in the account on a regular basis. Once you deposit a thousand dollars for six months, you can easily indicate that you have saved six thousand dollars and that another few months will help you come up with fifty to sixty percent payment of the total amount owed.

If you can offer this amount as a barter option, you will find that lenders are more than eager to help you out. This is one use full tip that will help you to get rid of some of your credit card debt. You can repay the balance and reduce the negative impact on your credit score and your finances. What is more, you can confidently avoid the disaster called bankruptcy.

Yikes! The price of being addicted to horses has suddenly gotten higher than ever! Have you noticed that while no one has any money, the price of horses hasn’t really dropped much? The price of keeping, feeding, caring for, and showing horses hasn’t gotten any cheaper, either.

In fact, it’s gotten more expensive. Our local “come learn how to do penning and sorting” has just become a jackpot penning, driving the price up by 3 times. The local shows now have added surcharges for fuel and office administration. Does that make any sense in a depressed economy?

Regardless, it’s resulting in the zen cowgirl blues. This zen cowgirl has money but has bigger dreams. I want to invest in an enhanced watering system for the back pasture, not to mention some raw land. So that means less showing and more work and investment in my business. Yikes! Unfortunately, I do better when there’s a competitive event on the horizon to shoot for … a horse show or a practice penning. So what’s a zen cowgirl to do?

3 Ways to Find Cheap Horse Activities in This Economy

Below I’m going to highlight one of the ideas I’m pursuing as a cheap horse activity. The three basic concepts of that idea are:

1. Retrofit what you have

2. Barter services with someone else to save money

3. Borrow equipment or gear from others

These three concepts really don’t require money, or at least not a lot of it. Now, read through the idea below and see if this gives you some ideas on what you might be able to do for a cheap horse activity.

What To Do About the Zen Cowgirl Blues

What do zen cowgirls do when the wallet gets tight but the competitive spirit is still burning strong? We get creative, and that’s exactly what I’m going to do. I’ve come up with 3 horse activities that I plan to do in the next 6 months which are aimed at competitive goals but won’t break the bank. In this article I’ll cover the first one:

… to be a one-jump wonder …

How to Be a One-Jump Wonder

I live on five acres of heaven with lush pastures for horses to graze and for making hay. One thing I have not had, though, is a flat area large enough in which to lope my horses. Thus far, I’ve only had enough room to walk and trot. That is all about to change. At the back of the property I have an large area that is currently divided into three corrals. The corral wood is old and nasty, not to mention chewed-up by the horses.

I was recently struck with the idea that if I take the corrals down, I’ll have a huge arena in which to lope. I can also put 1 or 2 jumps in that space. I can’t take down all that wood by myself, but I can with the help of a friend. So I’m bartering with my buddy Bill. He’s going to help me take down the corral wood and I’m going to do chores for him later in the month, when he and his wife are going on safari. Barter is cheap and only requires a little gas money and some elbow grease on my part.

Once I have my loping arena, I’m going to put 1 or 2 jumps in the area (a friend is going to loan me her jumps). Once that’s set up, I am going to become the one-jump wonder. That means I’m going to school my hunter/jumper mares to jump full courses by using only 1 or 2 jumps. This is modeled after a chap with whom I took one jumping lesson. Like me, this man only had land for one jump, so he taught every one of his horses and riders to jump entire courses by schooling over a single jump. Given that this man was once the high-jump champion in the state, I think he might have something there. I’m going to give it a whirl this coming fall and spring, and see whether I can use his techniques to teach my mares.

The benefits of this idea are:

1. Allows me to school my horses without hauling, thus saving on gas.

2. Keeps my intrigued because the idea is so crazy it’s fun (if I get bored, I go out and collect more horses).

3. Enables me to keep my horses in jumping shape without buying a bunch of jumps or taking expensive lessons.

The downsides to this idea are:

1. I will be proving once again that I am crazy (but hey, what is a zen cowgirl anyway?).

2. I’m not sure if I remember everything the dude taught me about schooling over just a single jump.

3. There are probably pitfalls to this approach that I have yet to discover.

Oh well, as with most activities related to my horses, everything is an open experiment, a work in progress. Without a doubt, this one-jump wonder idea will be interesting to implement, and I will probably learn some new tricks. It is, in any case, a fitting activity for a zen cowgirl who is addicted to mustangs. Stay tuned for more progress on this INSANE idea!

What About You?

What crazy but cheap ideas can you come up with to do with horses? Here’s one from my local paper:

“Will pay someone to ride my fat draft gelding.”

Hmmm … does this sound like you? It’s not just cheap, you get paid!

It seems that everyone is either experiencing or knows someone whose experiencing financial difficulty. Many are have taken the barter-trade route of Craigslist to provide the extras for their family and others have decided to lease rooms or sell items of property.

An often overlooked and lesser-known source of revenue is the option to sell oil and gas leases or a mineral rights lease to generate income from deep-pocketed petroleum and mining companies with whom you can enter into “working interest” agreements. Many people choose to sell oil and gas leases on their property as an easy way to generate extra income from land that they’ve already invested in. Working interests are beneficial to the property owner as the burden of exploration costs and mineral production or petroleum extraction are placed upon the company and not the individual. Individuals may decide to sell oil and gas leases to oil and gas exploration companies in exchange for a portion of the proceeds of the land on which exploration firms have agreed to invest in.

If you’ve ever driven down a highway and seen a lone pump jack, common in areas such as West Texas, then you’ve seen a land owner who has let his land to an oil company. In areas where oil isn’t common or in mountainous areas where useful materials may be located, an option for many is to sell mineral rights to extract: copper, gold, quartz, topaz or amethyst, all of which are lucrative commodities. Due to the high degree of geological diversity across the United States there’s a good chance that no matter where you own land you can sell oil and gas leases to working interests – effectively generating revenue with little to no initial investment. Some property owners have received payouts in the millions of dollars for a 100 acre oil rights lease!

With a growing need for energy production domestically many land owners, especially in the Southern United States, choose to sell oil and gas leases. The typical royalty is approximately 1/8th of the production – meaning that roughly $125,000 per $1,000,000 per working interest is generated for oil and gas royalty. This is quite the hefty profit for little-to-no upfront investment. Typically the exploration/extraction company shoulders the logistical burden of processing the site, which could require specialized equipment and expertise that is generally not possessed by the typical landowner.

If you own land it may be in your interest to consult with a mineral or oil and gas exploration service near you. You may even wish to contact and conduct your own geological survey. Many people aren’t even aware of the composition of their land and for little-to-no cost you could find yourself literally sitting upon a gold mine. You never know. Your lifetime financial security could be just around the corner.

Like most things in life you do not have to pay good money if you know where to go and what to do. If you shop around you will always find a discount somewhere and if you learn how to barter you will save yourself a lot of money. The same can be true with trying to find someone who you can spend your life with. There is no need to spend lots of money in fact in this article I will give you a few tips on how to pick up women free.

The first place you can find women for free is in the chat rooms on the internet. Go to your favourite search engine and type in ‘free chat rooms’. You will be led to rooms such as yahoo chat where you can download the program and not have to spend one single cent. Set yourself up an account describing yourself and put a nice picture of yourself there. Once you have done this you can start to browse the different categories you find interesting and away you go. Chat with whoever takes your fancy. Just be mindful there are some absolute imbeciles in some of the rooms who like nothing better to than to put you down.

You can pick up women at the public library or the supermarket. If you see someone you like the look of say hello to them. If you are in the library ask the woman you are interested in where a certain section is. In the supermarket do the same thing but maybe ask where to find the muesli. See what the reaction of the women is and take it from there. There is nothing wrong with chatting so see what happens.

Parties you have been invited to are also a good place where you can meet women for free. The other guests obviously have some connection with your friend so there will automatically be a level of trust. Talk to the women you like the look of and once again see where it leads. Its costs nothing to talk to people.

When you are out in a club you might spot a woman you are interested in. Using all the skills I have previously mentioned in other articles and which you have practised will put you in a good place to pick up women in clubs. It is totally free unless you are spending a lot of cash on drinks. Limit what you are spending there; stay sober and you will pick up women at little or no cost.

Get involved in a sporting club and you will see all the mothers, sisters and female relations of players and officials. There are a lot of women involved in sport as players but also working behind the scenes. It costs you nothing to meet women here and will also get you out into the sun.

If you think outside of the box there are countless ways for you to learn how to pick up women free. Give a few things a try and stay clear of dating sites, match makers or telephone match making sites.