The Art of the Barter
I’ve talked before about my affinity for bartering. If I can trade something I have for something I need from someone else, I am much happier than if I have to pay for something. I think that might be why love the whole Walgreens rebate thing so much. I buy things on my gift card and they give me back money on my gift card and actual currency never changes hands. But I digress.
We still have not replaced my Dell computer monitor that died an early, defective death. This bothers my spouse much more than me - mostly because I now have his computer monitor. So every day he asks me if I am going to buy a new one. I keep looking at Craigslist but nothing much has popped up, and I hate the idea of buying a new one. I even went to Goodwill but all they had were a bunch of keyboards, no monitors. So my spouse put up an ad where he works, and found someone with a 19″ CRT monitor they want to part with.
And this same person is also looking for old, outdated video game systems and games. My spouse has a whole bunch of stuff like that he never uses, and is trading an old intellivision system and a bunch of games for the CRT monitor. My spouse is happy, I am happy (I liked my 19″ more than the 17″ I “borrowed” from my spouse, if truth be told) and it didn’t cost anyone anything. And we get rid of some of the closet clutter that my spouse never uses but couldn’t make himself just throw away. Win win.
And now I can start the hinting for a huge 22″ widescreen LCD monitor for me for Christmas. In 2009, of course. We still have debt to kill in 2008. It’d be a nice no more debt reward. 
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
You can also: Stumble It! Bookmark Submit to Reddit Submit to Tip'd
October 24th, 2008 at 10:17 am
You might want to look into Freecycle.org. If the old broken monitor is a LCD flat screen, a lot of people will take it off your hands for DIY projector making purposes. Either way, Freecycle is great for bartering with people in your community.
October 24th, 2008 at 11:38 am
I too love this way of doing business.
My wife recently became an officer in the US Navy. I don’t know how many people know this, but officers have to buy their own uniforms. The uniforms she needs are VERY expensive. Her dress uniform costs over $600 new. Well, being the way I am, I told her to hold off a bit and let me look for one for her. Long story short, I found her the dress uniform she needed on Ebay for $100. Bought it from someone who had gotten out of the Navy 2 years ago and never even wore the unifrom. Best of all, due to my selling unwanted stuff on Ebay, I had enough Paypal credit to not have to pay a dime out of pocket.
All the best,
Paul H.
October 24th, 2008 at 11:57 am
Brilliant!
October 24th, 2008 at 2:50 pm
Nice trades all!
2nd the opinion on freecycle!
October 25th, 2008 at 11:33 am
LOL, the really nice thing about waiting until December 2009 is the price will surely go down by 25% if not more.
October 26th, 2008 at 4:19 pm
just found ur blog & really am enjoying it. you & I are on the same wavelength this week. stop by my blog for a visit!
October 27th, 2008 at 2:10 am
Bartering is a really good idea. I wonder why I’ve never really thought of that!
Although, I must say that I’m into the trade-in things when buying computer stuff… (recently I just traded-in my old printer for a new one: I got the new one at a really awesome discounted price, not to mention my old unusable printer is finally out of my hands!)
Thanks for sharing!
November 4th, 2008 at 12:04 pm
I am a firm believer in bartering. I recently wrote a blog entry about this myself. Trading stuff with friends is great, and you can swap services you need, too, not just items.