Bartering?

I have always declined bartering deals with customers. I just felt I didn't need the service or trade. Yesterday I did a carpet and tile job total ticket $900.00, The customer owns an Italian restaurant in town. I have eaten there once and it was pretty good. I agreed to reduce the ticket by 200,00. Not sure why I agreed to it. But I can tell you that I had a light breakfast and skipped lunch and I was starving

Have you guys every said yes to bartering for your service? If so for what? Was it a good decision?

Tax return preperations. By the 3rd year, he was just requesting extensions and putting it off. Back then with 4 kids in the home, we were getting a good refund. Can't really say its a refund, didn't have a pay any in the first place. Ya, was making that little.

Hopefully you get $ 300 worth of credit at that restaurant for that $ 200 discount, lol.
No barter for me and I don't think I've done barter before either, I guess if the barter is for something I need and has a better value than my cleaning, I might do it.
However I was offered marijuana as tips a while back, before it was legal
Yes I politely say no

Dang it I got ripped off

Thats a good barter Matt because you know you're going to need to get you taxes done.

 Did I really need fancy italian food?

I haven't done any bartering these days, but I sure did back in high school.

My first business was plowing snow with my old '49 Willys Jeep. It was a huge rust bucket, but it did have a 12 foot hydraulic plow. I struck a deal with the local theater and bowling alley (right next to each other) that I would clear their parking lots every time there was more than 1.5 inches of snow. In return, I got unlimited free bowling and movies for me and a guest all year.

I maybe plowed 5 times, but I saw every movie and became league bowling champ for that year. Besides, gas was cheap back then and plowing snow was actually fun.

If the barter works for you, why not?

I don't barter, and don't think I would want to.
Usually someone always comes out ahead, and it wouldn't be me.

Besides, you are supposed to claim that on your taxes anyway, and all my estimates and invoices are in QuickBooks. So it would leave a trail if I was going back and cooking the books, were I to get audited at some point.

If I were to barter, I would barter only for personal use items / services, I would never barter for business use for reasons that James said, if it's tax deductible forget it.
Mo, seriously, how much meal did you get for the $ 200 discounts you gave the guy ??

We are talking about Italians Dp, that $200 probably went to a "candle maker" in his neighborhood.

200.00 might get me 3 or 4 dinners for two.

As long as you are happy Mo, that's all that counts. Me, I wouldn't have done that deal.

Most of the time, I'd rather eat at home, especially since it's grilling season. About all I eat out, for the most part, is grabbing a burger or a burrito/taco. Winter is about the only time I eat out the expensive dinners.

We grill a lot of chicken, pork, fish and beef. Bacon wrapped/crusted boneless pork chops are the bomb. Can't get that in any restaurant I've ever been in.

Grilling season!!! It is 35 degrees outside right now and raining.

Yeah looking forward to grilling need to fill the propane tank in the Weber.

POOR Rob it's been a long winter

I am beginning to think that winter is never going to end. It will be hovering right at the freeze point each night until Monday so I have to keep winterizing. Just ridiculous.

At least at those temps, the grass isn't growing like mad. I've had to mow twice this week already. Mowing is one of those things I don't enjoy much. Takes me over an hour running my John deere in "road gear" to get it mowed. And my yard is rough from moles, so that's always a treat.

I'll grill whenever temps are above 40 degrees. We go through two tanks of propane a year. Not including about 3 bags of Kingsford charcoal we use in between. In warmer months, our stove gets little to no use.

Twice a week holy moly. My backyard is so uneven I have to weed wack the whole thing.

I think I want to move next to Freemind.

milspec6 wrote:I think I want to move next to Freemind.

The neighbors house is for sale. 24 Acres, pond, barn and boiler heat (outdoor wood burner).

Only a miniscule 340K.

Will they barter? I have an antique Orbot I can trade.

Lol. Nope.

He probably would trade for hunting land. Other than that, he is a pretty smart business owner. He built his HVAC business from the ground up.

Interesting timing on this topic, I cleaned 2 houses today including 7 couches and the customer asked if I was interested in making a trade as he was an importer of some type.  I told him no as he started pulling out boxes from his basement.

In the end, he paid the bill, but gave me a box as a tip.  I just opened it up a few minutes ago.  A pretty nice copper skillet, a set of Bluetooth speakers, some Star Wars figure, a package of beer bread batter, and a bag of dutch cookies.

I said the same thing.......it is a pretty nice looking skillet at least.

Lol. Wonder how many copper pans he would have traded you?

Barter is OK when both people walk away getting a good deal. I have rarely found deals like that for myself. Usually the one wanting to trade me, is bartering something with very little value (to me) for something that has quite a bit more value.

Ever look at the barter section of craigslist? I see it there locally all the time. People openly trying to trade something of little value for something with significantly more value. Either there are lots of people getting one over on dumb people, or there are a lot of dreamers in that section.

That is the biggest problem with bartering, rarely do both parties hold the item to be of same value. I sold a guitar last week and I was receiving far more trade offers than cash and what they had was never of any value to me. There offer had value as in what it costs to buy, but no value to me as I didn't need it.

One guy wanted to trade me a new snow blower. It was worth more than the guitar in retail value, but not in late April.

I've ran into the same deal. If I am offering to trade something, I list specifically what I want to trade for. It seems though, any offers to trade are not what I am looking for. And I don't run a retail shop to resell stuff I want to sell. So, like you said, I wouldn't value a snowblower when I would have to sit on it months to MAYBE sell it for what I could have sold my item for originally.

I have taken to EBay, to sell anything shippable anymore. That way at least I know I'll be getting money. No quarrels about it. I may get the price I want, or I won't. But there are about no headaches in it like there is selling stuff on listing sites.

I have some janitorial equipment to sell this year, that I am not looking forward to listing on craigslist. I'm done with the janitorial game, so I need to get rid of it.

I dislike dealing with people anymore. More and more, they most all appear to have lost any intelligence and common sense.

Sounds like you are the perfect guy to turn into the commercial cleaner these days. Working evenings when there is nobody around can be nice at times.

I feel the same way about listing sites, fleabay is still where I list most things. I do have a bunch of disaster and haz-mat equipment to sell off, but they are not very easily shipped so I am stuck local.

I have had good luck buying off CL and met some very good people, but never when I was selling anything. I don't know why it always ends up that way, but it does.