In today’s economic climate, it’s important to have a rainy day fund just in case one gets the pink slip from work and gets laid off. Life can certainly be unpredictable. Living life means we will always have expenses and bills to pay. Just imagine getting laid off from work. How are you going to pay for your rent or mortgage? Heat and utilities? Car payment? Groceries? Kid’s lessons? Daycare fees if you have children? The list goes on and I’m sure it can be quite stressful just thinking about it.
The temptation to live beyond our means is easy. If I don’t have cash on hand, I can use my credit card. I see what others have and I too deserve it. I deserve a vacation. I deserve to live in a big house. I deserve to drive a luxury car. I deserve to eat out everyday. Our desires are simply influenced by our surroundings – media, TV, advertisements, friends. Your desires and wants can certainly burden you and your family if you are not saving your money for that unexpected doomsday. It can happen to any of us and so it’s best to have a plan in place and be financially responsible.
To save money, we have to control our wants, however, living life doesn’t mean you can’t spend your money and not enjoy what life has to offer. It just means you have to spend within your means, make smart decisions, and be diligent in finding ways to save your money.
Have you ever thought of bartering your skills to get what you needed without having to pay cash for it? You can barter direct or if you are self-employed or operate your own business, you can participate through a barter exchange network to help save you and your family money.
A barter exchange network enables you to sell your products or services on barter using a virtual currency called Trade Dollars. The Trade Dollars earned through the sale of a product or service can then be used to purchase products and services from any one of the member businesses that are part of the barter exchange network. The member offerings through a barter exchange network is diverse ranging from business products and services to consumer items such as residential cleaning, plumbing services, retail and travel. The key to barter is identifying where is it in your personal life that you are currently spending cash on, and how is it that you can leverage barter to help offset those personal cash expenses. For example if you are looking to do home renovations or need stuff done around the house, why spend cash when you can barter for it! Barter your skills or products and services through your business for carpet cleaning, window cleaning, furnace and duct cleaning, framing, drywall, painting, electrical, plumbing, and locksmith services. The more times you barter, the more times you’ll be able to save your cash.
If you are bartering direct, get creative! Find things in your house that you no longer have a use for and post it on Kijiji. Let people know what you’re looking for and post an offer for a trade. You never know unless you ask and you might be surprised with a pleasant offer!
We all spend money on things we enjoy from dining out to getting pampered at the spa or getting our homes cleaned. What about that family vacation? Through a barter exchange network, you can barter for accommodation, car rental, food and beverage, entertainment and much more! As a member of a barter exchange network, you are not limited to what you can buy in your local city. Often times, a barter exchange network has partnerships with other networks in different cities. A barter exchange network will ultimately help to identify where you’re currently spending cash on in your personal life and help to make recommendations on how you can replace those personal cash expenses with barter.
By trading your skill to get what you want, it is only costing you your own time. If you are trading as a business through a barter exchange network, it is costing you your own time or cost of goods. Whenever you are buying items on barter, you are buying items at your own cost or at a discounted rate. By leveraging barter as a financial tool, you will have more cash in your pocket for those days, weeks or months when you really need it.
