CHAPTER 2

THE BARTER LURKING AROUND YOUR HOUSE

Ideas create possibilities. Possibilities offer hope.
Create some!

—Karen S. Hoffman

There are barter opportunities hiding all around your home. They are under the bed, lounging in your attic, lurking in your basement, sneaking around your garage. Here you were, living in your humble abode all this time, and you had no idea. Don’t blame yourself. You’re not the only one who doesn’t know about all that wealth hiding in plain sight. Even the best traders forget about the stuff they have that could be bartered. So let’s take a peek inside those boxes in the basement and the dark corners of your closet to see what’s hanging out in there that could save you some cash.

TURNING GOODS INTO GOODIES

We’ll start with the easy stuff. You’ll need your favorite notepad, writing utensil, and maybe a digital camera if you have one. Pick a room in your home. Instead of looking at the things you usually focus on in this room, notice the items that you rarely pay attention to. What things are cluttering the space? Maybe that chair that’s become a place to throw your coats—the one that hasn’t felt your backside in months, maybe years? It could be your next barter victory. Check under the bed. Chances are there are items stored underneath that you’ve long forgotten about that need a good home (excluding the dust bunnies). Check the drawers in your bureau, especially those “junk drawers.” If you haven’t worn, sat on, played with, displayed, or used it in more than year, you won’t miss it. Time to prowl through the dark corners of your closet: Are there clothes, coats, boots, purses, hats, or other accessories that could go back into circulation?

Start collecting these items in a central location and writing down what each one is. Include a brief description, including brand names, sizes, or other information that will help you sort through it. If you’ve got a digital camera, take some shots so you can upload them to barter Web sites when you’re ready. A few different angles—including ones that show logos or other identifying information, as well as any flaws—will be helpful. Make the objects look as attractive as possible. In this day of high-end advertising, consumers expect top-notch graphics. Traders will accept lower standards, of course, but we’re all human and highly attuned to the onslaught of the product beauty pageant. Fuzzy, dimly lit photos won’t help you make any trades.

If there are items you are debating putting up for barter, just put a question mark beside them and see how you feel in a few days or a week. You may decide that they are too precious to part with or, after a bit of time, more like clutter than treasure.

Don’t get distracted cleaning or trying on items as you go through the sorting process; you can do that later. Rather, focus your energy on finding, cataloging, describing, and assigning a value to the items you can trade. Besides, it’ll be easier to clean when you’ve transferred all your excess stuff to someone else’s home.

Do this same task room by room. Make sure you root through the garage, attic, basement, and other unused areas of your home. Poke around in boxes, shelves that haven’t been disturbed for ages, toy chests that haven’t been investigated by little hands for several months, and any other neglected container.

Don’t take the furniture for granted. Is there a table, desk, chair, chest, or other furnishing that you could refinish so that it fetches a better trade? Would a new covering on a cushion, often an easy repair, make a set of dining chairs more up-to-date and a definite must-have? If you’ve got a small appliance or electronic device that is beyond your skills to repair or refurbish, don’t worry—you’ve still got a potential trade on hand. Handymen love snapping up those sorts of items to fix and sell for a nice price.

Random objects such as mismatched tools, picture-hanging supplies, spackle, and the like could be lumped together as a fix-it kit. Gather up your unused hair ornaments, extra beauty supplies, and stray costume jewelry and label it “Girl’s Dress-Up Kit” or “Makeover Magic Collection.” Sometimes a little creative marketing goes a long way. Just make sure you can describe the most attractive or valuable objects in the collection to get traders interested in the whole kit and caboodle. If you’ve got a spare decorative box or the energy to wrap a plain container in a festive or appropriate style of paper, you now have an excellent holder to offer your wares in.

After you’ve canvassed all the obvious spaces (bedroom, kitchen, garage), take a look at the ones you missed. How about your yard or patio? Ready to relocate some lawn furniture, a forlorn pool, the bike no one rides, or the kiddie car no one races anymore? How about that overcrowded bed of iris, hostas, or daffodils that you could thin and then trade the excess bulbs? Itching to uproot a few shrubs and trade them for a rose bush or two in their place? Do you pay someone to mow your lawn but still own a lawn mower that’s just gathering dust? This is an excellent item to barter, perhaps with the guy who cuts your grass or with the neighbors who could trade you leftover bulbs or veggies from their garden.

What about your pets? Now, before you think we’re telling you to put Fluffy up for barter, consider this: When Karen was about ten years old, she had a tank of fish. When the fish would get too big for the tank, she would take them to the pet store she bought them from and trade them for different fish, often smaller. Larger fish are harder for pet stores to source, so Karen’s trade not only provided a nice new fish inventory for the owners but also kept her own fish tank more diverse and interesting. And when one group of fish grew too large again, back to the pet store she’d go for another trade.

Years later, Karen’s son Joe had a cat that never bonded with him; Joe was so disappointed that the cat wanted nothing to do with him. One day, Karen’s husband, Rick, was chatting with a buddy about the situation, and the friend offered a solution. He had a Llewellin setter he had bred for hunting, but that dog just wouldn’t hunt. He offered to trade the setter for the aloof feline. The new puppy and Joe were a better match, and the cat got a home where her snobbish temperament was appreciated—a pet problem solved through barter.

Vehicles can play into your barter plans in interesting ways, depending on what you want to do with them. If you’ve got an old car that you aren’t using, you could trade it for something you do want. If you have a vehicle that no longer suits your needs and is in good shape, you’ve got even more creative possibilities. Maybe your aging parents need a vehicle that has hand controls or other adaptive technology. Perhaps your family has grown, and you need to get rid of your sports car or motorcycle in favor of a van or family-friendly vehicle. By the same token, if your children have grown up and moved out, it’s a great time to trade your SUV for a smaller car (and think of the gasoline you’ll save).

Sometimes you’ll want to trade a vehicle out of desire rather than necessity. Karen’s husband, Rick, is a great example of that. Rick once bought a race car that was overequipped for the type of racing he really wanted to do. If he had tried to trade it back in to the dealer, he would have gotten far less than he had paid for it. Instead, Rick offered to trade the car to a buddy who had a muscle car that was more to the specs Rick had in mind. They made the trade, and both were delighted with the exchange.

Some people have equipment like a backhoe, electric generator, trailer, bush hog, snowmobile, personal watercraft, or karaoke machine. Often that equipment isn’t being operated 100 percent of the time, but you can make it work for you even when you aren’t using it. It presents a couple of fantastic barter opportunities: You can either offer to perform work using the equipment or allow a trading partner to use the machinery without you. Either way, you put tools, implements, recreational vehicles, and other such equipment to work for you even when you aren’t using it. Imagine the possibilities: You can trade your personal watercraft for time in someone’s vacation home on the water. You can barter your karaoke machine for free drinks or meals at your favorite bar or pub. Let a friend use your power washer in exchange for having them also wash off your deck or siding. While both traders’ specific needs may seem, at first, hard to match, it all begins with a conversation about what each person has to offer and a willingness to get creative about the exchange.

Most likely the big-ticket items for barter are easier to spot around your house, but did you also consider taking a closer look at your books, DVDs, games, and CDs? Those are all highly barterable items, and there are several great Web sites solely focused on entertainment that will give you venues for exchange. Just by listing a single item on a site like Swaptree.com, you could get access to hundreds of other items that people are willing to exchange, all for the cost of postage. This is especially helpful if you’ve got bookcases full of novels you won’t read again, movies your kids have tired of or outgrown, and games that you’ve mastered. While we love our public libraries and various rental services, barter sites like these mean there’s no need to worry about return dates or late fees. They take some of the stress out of everyday living. And when you’re tired of them, you can trade them again for something new; now that’s serious recycling.

There are also Web sites for trading unused gift cards. If you can’t fathom ever redeeming that card from Aunt Ethel for the Fruitcake-of-the-Month Club, sites like CardAvenue.com or PlasticJungle.com allow you to trade for cards at the places you really do want to shop. You get the stuff you really want, and you don’t have to figure out where to put all those fruitcakes. As an added layer of protection, these sites verify the amounts on the cards before the trade can happen, which is a bit more reassuring than just putting an offer on CraigsList.org.

If you want to add a social element to your barter experience, organize a neighborhood barter party. Neighborhoods like Sunnyside in Portland, Oregon, and Norwood, in Cincinnati, Ohio, have been doing just that. The structure of the neighborhood swap can vary greatly, depending on how the community wants it to transpire. In Sunnyside, for instance, everyone brings their stuff to a school gym where it’s sorted by type. Volunteers who help with orchestrating the Useful Goods Exchange get first pick of the booty. Then the doors are thrown open, and the neighbors mosey through to pick up whatever they want. The swap works on the honor system, and the community loves it. In Norwood, the neighbors simply share whatever they have that others might need, such as a lawn mower or working in the community garden.

Another take would be for the neighbors to pick a date for a barter block party and then position all their stuff in their yards like a yard sale and then let the swapping begin. Each neighbor could use scrip for items “purchased” or “sold” if they don’t feel that the honor system would work. Anything that isn’t sold can be donated to charity.

Other neighborhood swaps focus on particular types of items: Halloween costumes, clothing, plants, bulbs, seeds, toys, sports equipment, books, movies, CDs, home accessories—you name it. In the end, everyone gets to trade away what they no longer want and replace it with something far more useful or desirable.

We would also recommend that you don’t let barter stop at your home or neighborhood. Check out your workplace for trade fodder. Does your employer routinely throw out items like office furniture, electronics, raw materials, flawed/ repairable merchandise, or other goods? If so, ask if you can take those items instead of tossing them into the waste stream. You’ll not only be getting more great items for barter that will save you cash but also be helping the environment by recycling. You can help persuade your company to let you have its (ahem) trash by explaining that it will get to promote your recycling efforts within its industry and among employees as an earth-friendly practice. If the items you get come in a steady flow, you’re in a stronger position to join a barter exchange and make trading easier.

If you really get enthusiastic about barter (and how could you not?), consider getting a job as a trade broker at an exchange. The industry is always looking for creative, energetic people who understand the positive impact that barter can have on people’s lives. And how better to become an expert on barter than by being on the inside? You’ll also have access to some of the juiciest trades around as they come up. (Check out chapter 11 for more about working in the barter industry.)

In the unlikely event that you are a neat freak and don’t have much clutter lying about for bartering, you may want to start haunting garage and tag sales to find items that will cost you little and gain you much. While it might seem a bit illogical for barter mavens to recommend paying hard-won cash for castoffs at a yard sale, it’s not a bad strategy. If you can improve what you buy to make it more valuable, or you’ve discovered a barter market for a particular sort of item (refurbished machinery/electronics or found-object art, perhaps), then you can actually earn more through trading than what you paid for the raw materials. A friend of Shera’s is a very talented decorative painter who buys used or unlovely wooden objects at yard sales. Her husband strips or sands them, and she then paints them with her own delightfully creative designs. She trades and sells them at craft shows, which is an even more powerful use of what she finds. She generates cash and barter all while exercising her creative talents and doing what she loves.

You can apply the same idea to the many different objects that people toss aside, especially after home renovations or during mass moving periods such as month ends or the finish of college semesters. Items dumped in alleys, beside Dumpsters, or curbside can provide a wealth of barter possibilities free for the taking. Check your area’s college calendars to discover when students are likely to be finishing the semester and moving.

You can also look for area-wide large-item disposal days when the pickings will be excellent. Make sure that if you’re trolling for large objects you’ve got extra hands and an appropriate truck or other vehicle to haul the goods away. If the renovation castoffs are being dumped in a construction trash container, a good policy is to ask before you do any Dumpster diving. While you’re on pretty safe ground assuming that the objects are no longer wanted, you don’t want to run afoul of hazardous materials in the bin or startled home owners shocked to see you making off with their old chandeliers. Besides, you may find that by asking, there’s even better stuff yet to go into the bin that they’ll let you take before it hits the Dumpster and takes more of a beating.

To find additional hidden barter opportunities in your life, don’t forget about the spaces outside your residence. Do you have a storage unit crammed full of furniture, kitchenware, and unused appliances? How much of it do you really need? Are there boxes or shelves of items at your mom’s house that you’ve forgotten about? Many people own boats, campers, RVs, or aircraft that they can’t afford or no longer want to operate. Instead of racking up storage or rental fees, look for chances to barter those items. Or you can barter time using them if the market is flooded or you really don’t want to give them up. Just be sure to check with your insurer about any special riders, as you may need to cover other users if you opt to barter time using the item rather than trading it away.

When it comes to the stuff that fills your life, just be creative and don’t rule out any possibilities. You never know what may arise.

TRADE YOUR TALENT

Take a look at your hands. Whoa! There’s some serious barter power there, as well as with your legs, your throat, your arms. But most of all, your greatest barter potential is your mind. What you’ve got lying around your house or garage is one group of potential trades, but you also have vast realms of barter possibilities that you probably haven’t considered within your own time and talents. Before you start nay-saying—“But I don’t have any talents!”—listen to this: You don’t have to be a concert pianist or a Hollywood actor to have talent. Your talents are often the activities you adore that you don’t get paid for ... the things you love to do simply because you enjoy them. Do you love to collect stamps or coins? There are lots of barter opportunities in your collection. Do you crochet, quilt, or do some other handicraft? Fantastic trades are at your fingertips, quite literally. The work of your hands is barterable.

Deborah Hyland is a perfect example. Deborah loves to knit—but she doesn’t do just any sort of knitting. Deborah is a Civil War reenactor and has developed a niche for herself, knitting Civil War-era reproduction goods. She trades her handiwork with other reenactor craftsmen for an astounding assortment of period pieces. She’s traded for custom-made taffeta boots that would have cost her $200 if she had paid cash. She has also traded her extraordinary nightcaps, shawls, socks, and other knit clothing. Her creations take hours (one sock requires ten hours of knitting), and she uses heaviergrade yarn and more-complex period designs than modern knits typically call for. Her tip for working out the value of a trade with another craftsman is to explain about the quality of the raw materials and how many hours are required to make the piece. Then she lets the buyer determine what he or she will offer to trade in return. That way, everyone feels that the exchange is fair, and it tends to be based more on hours of workmanship rather than dollar value. In the end, both traders get handmade reproductions that would have cost hundreds, maybe thousands, of dollars in the cash market.

Do you love to hunt, fish, or garden? You can trade an extra fish, duck, deer, watermelon, or quail for the things you don’t have. The game or produce that your family can’t consume can become barter material. You could even be strategic about it and plant more, fish more, or bag an extra animal so that you are certain to have food to barter. As the demand for organic food skyrockets, you could bring home some lucrative trades for what you fish, hunt, or grow.

When we said your talent might be in your legs or throat, we weren’t exaggerating. What we meant is that you can barter your physical skills, talents, and abilities in a wide spectrum of services. For example, instead of being just an exercise fanatic, you could become someone’s personal trainer. Or think about using your vocal talents to sing at events or give motivational speeches. Whatever you are passionate about is a contender when it comes to bartering your talents.

Often you’ll find that your workplace skills are also barter worthy. Because she has been a business owner, Karen is able to draw on her knowledge and her gift for coaching to help entrepreneurs have more profitable companies and more personal satisfaction with their work. She has traded coaching for restaurant certificates, Christmas decorating, feng shui, housecleaning, chiropractic care, hypnotherapy, and more. In some cases, she trades for chores she dislikes, such as cleaning her home. Besides allowing Karen to not have to do her own cleaning, the trade frees her up to do more of the work she loves, including work that brings in cash. Karen could easily spend all day coaching clients and doing what she is passionate about because it doesn’t feel like work.

Beyond your talents, you can also barter your time and labor. If you need someone to paint your house, trade your time babysitting the painter’s children for his labor. Your labor doesn’t have to be highly skilled. Trade housecleaning for handyman services, yard work for cooking, auto detailing for gutter cleaning, or whatever physical labor your can perform. Just recognize that the lower the level of skill you trade, the more hours you will probably have to put into it if you are bartering for a higher-level skill, such as accounting or legal work.

There’s one other skill that you should consider bartering: your knowledge. What you know can be converted into a heavy-duty amount of barter depending on your area of expertise. For example, are you fluent in a language other than English? You can barter language lessons. Are you a talented cake decorator? Teach newbies how to bake scrumptious cakes and decorate them like a celebrity pastry chef. Do you understand the movements of the planets and stars? Teach others how to become budding astronomers—or, if your knowledge is focused on the astral plane, trade astrological readings for clients. Dare we say that the sky’s the limit on how you apply the fruits of your knowledge to bartering?

TIME TO MAKE A LIST

To get started figuring out what your talents are, make a list of your hobbies, pastimes, activities that you enjoy, and work skills. What do you love to do? Ask other people what they think your talents and skills are. Is there something that you enjoyed doing when you were a child, teenager, or young adult that you haven’t thought of in years? Could you do it now as barter? Perhaps you’ve got a skill that you could develop a bit more to turn it into a trade, such as turning sewing into tailoring or upholstering. Do you love to shop? Become someone’s personal shopper. Do you love to cook? Relieve a bit of the pressure around the holidays and trade your cooking skills with a neighbor for some much-needed housecleaning. There is a nearly unlimited list of possibilities to consider.

Once you have your inventory, ask yourself which thing you’d like to do the most and/or what would bring you the most in trade. If you’re not sure what skill is most in demand, check out some of the barter Web sites to see what people need. It’s a safe bet that those are the highly sought-after services. Also check to see what is available in abundance. If a dozen people in your area are offering housecleaning, you might be better served by offering something different or offering an unusual version of it. Instead of general housecleaning, offer deep- or spring-cleaning services. That sort of differentiation can measurably increase how many trades come your way.

But we don’t want you to have all the fun alone. Ask your spouse/partner and kids if they want to join in. Make a skills and labor inventory with them. You might be surprised what they are willing to do once they realize what bartering can bring them. Your children might make great babysitters, dog walkers, lawn mowers, elder sitters, tutors, fish-tank cleaners, car detailers, or gardeners, depending on their age and likes. It’s possible that the whole family could barter one activity together. Does everyone in your crew love birthday parties? What about offering a party-on-demand service? Mom bakes the cake and goodies, Dad procures supplies and dresses up like a clown, the kids plan and direct party games, and everyone cleans up.

While it might be tempting to force your kids to barter their labor, unless your family’s situation isn’t dire, we don’t recommend it. When people choose to offer a labor out of what they love, you’ll get less resistance and more barter hours from them simply because they enjoy it. Attraction is a better policy than compulsion. Reward is a strong incentive as well. If kids see what barter can produce for them, they’ll be more eager to become barter babies. It also helps take the pressure off Mom and Dad. Think of all the times your children have whined for this or that. With barter, saying “no” turns into “What can you barter for that?”

Plus, barter is a great life skill to teach your children. They’ll learn what the value of their labor is worth, discover that it can be equated to more than the dollar, and forge a sense of self-reliance rather than victimhood that will serve them well for the rest of their years and for generations to come.

After you’ve made a skills inventory and rounded up the goods you have available to barter, make a wish list of your needs and wants. Take a look at your personal budget and prioritize the list by needs first. You may not be able to barter for necessities, but it helps to put your energy into getting your needs met before the desires of your heart. If the desires are what you get offers for first, you’ll still save cash. But keep in mind that when you are trading labor, you have a finite amount of barterable time. If you sell your time for wants rather than needs, your fixed expenses won’t shrink, you may miss out on some stress relief, and you’ll find that you don’t have enough capacity to take advantage of an offer that could fill a high-priority need.

THE THREESOME

Some people will find that they don’t have much stuff, or they have a limited amount of time, or they have a trading partner with a specific need they can’t meet. Time to take a hard look at who’s sitting on your bench. Someone else in your life may be able to fulfill a specific need a prospective trading partner has but that you lack. These sorts of third-party, or triangulation, trades can come to your rescue. Yes, third-party trades do complicate a transaction, but they can come together well if all the parties communicate clearly and specifically and, most important, everyone executes his or her side of the deal.

Shera’s first foray into barter was a third-party deal. After she got engaged she realized that to have the wedding she really wanted, she would need to get creative. At the time, she was a newspaper reporter, and trading her writing skills for goods would have been unethical. She couldn’t think of another skill or talent that would be worthy of acquiring her dream wedding, but she did have a great connection that could get the job done. Her stepfather owned a tiny little newspaper outside her hometown of Nashville, Tennessee, and he bartered advertising space for goods and services all the time. A quick phone call and she had her stepdad’s agreement that he would provide as much ad space to trade as she needed. She got a copy of his ad rate sheet so she knew how much cash value she could work with. Then she got busy with the Yellow Pages (pre-Internet times, folks) and started looking for wedding shops, florists, and printers in her parents’ little town.

She found a wedding shop nearby, an independent store that would have more flexibility than a large retail chain. She knew she needed to call the owner and see if she could work out a deal, but she’d never sold anything in her life (not counting lightbulbs and Christmas wrapping paper for the high school band). How was she supposed to call up a rank stranger, make this outrageous proposal to someone who didn’t know her from Adam or Eve, and snag the most beautiful wedding gown of her dreams?

Nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs, she mustered up her courage and made the call. She stuttered like someone with a mouthful of marbles and was anything but smooth. But the store owner agreed to meet to talk over her proposal. Several weeks later, they hashed out a deal with a handshake, and she got to pick out a beautiful white dress, veil, and blue garter.

Heady with this success, she worked the same maneuver with a florist (again, with nerves rattling). She bartered her way into a stunning armful of roses, bouquets for her bridesmaids, and boutonnieres for the groom and groomsmen. In all, she saved about $1,500 by bartering and eliminated a huge financial strain.

That’s just one iteration of a third-party trade. Traditionally, the term “three-way trade” has described a complex transaction where one party traded with a partner who provided goods to a third trader that actually produced the goods the original party desired. It looks like this: Jim needs someone to power wash his deck, and he can offer his auto mechanic skills in exchange. Don can do the power washing but doesn’t need any car repairs. Don’s fellow church member Lucy has an older car that needs work, but she has no money for the repairs. Since Lucy is a great housekeeper, she offers to clean Don’s house in exchange for the repairs that he’ll earn by trading power washing with Jim. Whew! Got all that? Basically it boils down to each party trading for what another party needs in relatively equal measure. Often, these types of trades work best when two of the parties know each other and can help hold each other accountable. But just as in a third-party barter, three-way trades can arise when a trader has a need but can’t satisfy a trading partner with that good or service. Most of all, three-way trades take patience and creativity. But with persistence, traders can make them a win-win-win situation.

BALANCING THE PROS AND CONS

On balance, barter is more of a benefit than not for people with a bit of patience, flexibility, and determination. If you are aware of the downsides before you start, barter becomes a great gift. But it truly helps to be strategic about it. When you are, you’ll suddenly discover that there is more flexibility and fun in a life that’s far more enjoyable to live.

GREAT TRADE!

Stacey Kannenberg’s dear friend Alison was strapped for cash and needed an attorney to help her get a divorce. As it happened, the lawyer that Alison wanted to hire had written a manuscript that she wanted to turn into a book. Alison had public relations experience but that alone wasn’t enough to cover the attorney fees or what the lawyer really needed—someone to help her self-publish and market her book. So Stacey offered to throw in her savvy as a book marketing and branding expert, and Alison provided the public relations expertise. Voilà! A third-party barter was born. But then the deal got even better. Because of the amount of help Alison’s attorney needed to promote her book so that she could widely establish herself as an expert in her particular area of the law, Alison and Stacey both earned cash for the work they provided beyond the value of the legal work. Stacey helped her friend not only get a divorce for no cash but also attract a paying client. Stacey estimates that the total value of the deal in cash and barter was worth around $100,000. And, as icing on the cake, the two dear friends got to work together.

BARTERING WEB SITES

General Barter Web Sites

BarterFest.net
BarterQuest.com
BarterSwitch.com
CareToTrade.com
CraigsList.org
Favorpals.com
TradeAFavor.com
TradeAmericanOnline.com
TradeAway.com
Trashbank.com
U-Exchange.com

Specialty Barter Sites

BookMooch.com (for books)
Bookswap.com (for textbooks)
CardAvenue.com (to trade gift cards)
DomuSwap.com (to trade a house)
HomeExchange.com
PaperbackSwap.com
PlasticJungle.com (to trade gift cards)
SwapTree.com (for books, movies, CDs, and games)
TheGiftCardTrader.com
ToysToTrade.com
ToySwap.com
(See more sites in the Resources section.)

BARTER OPPORTUNITIES IN YOUR LIFE

Here is a list of the potential items and services you may have that could be bartered. This is not a comprehensive list; no list ever could be. But it will give you some ideas that you may not have considered and some clues you may have missed.

Stuff

Adult clothing
Antiques
Art (painting, sculpture,
ceramics, photographs,
etc.—yours or someone
else’s)
Baby clothes
Baby equipment
Baby furniture
Backhoes
Baking supplies or unused
kitchen equipment
Beauty supplies
Bedding
Beds
Bicycles
Billiard or pool table
Boats
Bonds
Books
Bowling ball
Boxes for moving
Bridesmaid dress
Bulldozers
Bush hog
Camping supplies
Canoe or raft
Cars
CDs
Children’s clothing
Clothing accessories
Coins or any other type of
collectible
Comic books
Commodities
Computer peripherals
Computer/video games
Condo rentals
Cruises
Decor items
Discarded or extra building
supplies
Dog supplies
Doghouses
Dogs
Dolls
DVDs
Engines
Event tickets
Fabric remnants
Fill dirt
Film cameras
Fish
Fixtures
Flowers (plants or bulbs)
Furniture
Furs
Game consoles
Garage space
Garden equipment
Garden supplies
Gift cards or certificates
Golf clubs and equipment
Guns
Handmade candles
Handmade jewelry
Hay, milk, seeds, or other
agricultural products
Herbs
Homemade baked goods
Homemade dog treats
Honey
Horseback riding equipment
Horses
Ice skates
Leather
Livestock
Meals
Medicinal herbs
Musical instruments
Office supplies
Old wedding or engagement
rings
Other unused jewelry
Outgrown children’s
clothing
Paint
Parking space
Pets
Planes
Pool supplies
Produce
Quilts
Race cars
Radios
Record albums
Recreational vehicles
Rocks
Roller skates
Rollerblades
Room and board
Rototiller
Scuba equipment
Sculptures
Seeds
Sewing machine
Sheds
Skateboards
Skis
Software
Sound equipment
Sports equipment, outgrown
or unused (tennis rackets,
golf clubs, in-line skates,
etc.)
Stamps
Stocks
Storage space
Surfboards
Textbooks
Toiletries
Tools
Toys
Trailers
Unused computers and
equipment
Used tennis balls, golf balls,
or baseballs
Vacation homes
Vehicle parts
Wading pool
Wedding gown
Wine
Workout videos/DVDs
Yarn or other handiwork
supplies

Talents/Skills/Services

Accounting
Acupuncture
Adventure guide
Advertising
Aftermarket vehicle installa-
tion
Alternative healing
Appraisals (antiques, real
estate, comic books,
other areas of expertise)
Aquarium maintenance
Architecture
Artistic work
Astrology readings
Auditing
Auto repair
Babysitting
Babysitting co-op
Baking
Bartending
Beekeeping
Birthday party organizer
Boating/sailing (lessons or
captaining)
Bookkeeping
Bulldozing
Cabinetmaking
Card dealer
Caretaking of animals or
pets
Carving
Cat sitting
Catering
Chauffeur
Chef or cooking skills
Child care
Cleaning
Clothing design
Coaching (business and
sports)
Cobbler
Computer purchasing
consulting
Computer repair/service
Computer repair, upgrades,
installations
Computer troubleshooting
Construction/building
Construction supervision
Cooking
Cooking instruction
Counseling
Crocheting
Dance performance or
instruction
Data processing
Deaf interpreting
Deliveries
Dentistry
Dog walking
Drywall installation and
repair
Editing/proofreading
Elder care
Elder companion
Electrical
Electronics repair
Emcee
Energy audits
Engineering
Errands
Event planning
Farming
Fashion consultant
Financial planning
Fishing excursions
Fishing lessons
Floral arrangement
Foreign language instruction
Foreign language interpreting
Funeral officiant
Furniture refinishing
Furniture repair
Gardening
General repairs
Golf instruction
Graphic design
Green home consulting
Gymnastic instruction
Hair braiding
Haircutting/ hair styling
Handicrafts
Handyman
Health care
House-sitting
Hunting
Hypnotherapy
Interior design
Introductions to influential
or business people
Inventing/prototyping
Janitorial service
Jewelry creation or repair
Junk hauling
Kayaking lessons
Knitting
Landscape design, construction,
or architecture
Laundry service
Lawn care
Legal
Livestock
Local tour guide
Locksmith
Makeup consultant
Marketing or other business
consulting
Martial arts instruction
Massage
Matchmaking
Medical care
Model building
Modeling
Motorcycle repair
Mountaineering/climbing/
adventure leader
Muralist
Musician
Nurse’s aide
Nursing
Nutrition consulting
Optician
Organizing
Orthodontics
Painting (artistic, home,
business)
Palm reading
Parachuting instruction
Pest control
Pharmaceutical consulting
Photography
Piano repair
Piano tuning
Plant care
Plumbing
Podiatry
Pond installation
Pool service
Power washing
Psychic readings
Raising animals
Real estate broker/agent
Recording, using your home
audio suite
Referee
Reflexology
Reptiles
Research
Retirement planning
RV repair, storage, restoration
Sailboat rental
Sailboat cruises
Sailing lessons
Sales
Scrapbooking
Sculpting lessons
Search engine optimization
Secretarial services
Self-defense instruction
Setting up sales for people
on Web sites such as
eBay
Skating instruction
Ski instruction (snow or
water)
Social networking communications
Solar installation
Sound system installation
Speech therapy
Stump grinding
Surfing instruction
Surgery
Surveying
Swimming instruction
Tailoring
Tarot readings
Tatooing
Tax filing
Taxidermy
Teaching
Travel service
Tree trimming
Trivia night host/question
creator
Trucking
Tutoring
Upholstery
Upholstery instruction
Vehicle purchase consulting
Veterinary care
Video editing
Video production
Videography
Weaving
Web site development
Wedding officiant
Wedding planning
Welding
Window installation
Wine consultant/party host
Wood chopping
Woodworking
Woodworking instruction
Writing
Writing instruction