The Non-Monetary Economy
I love a good swap!
I have to admit, I am not really a fan of spending money. I would much rather trade goods or services than hand over my hard-earned cash. I should think all small communities are probably the same: there is a thriving non-monetary economy bubbling away happily just beneath the surface.
It is for this reason that, a few times during the growing season, I find myself in the kitchen melting over large pots of jam, jelly, and chutney. I make enough each year to meet our needs, give some away to family and friends at Christmas, and have a few jars left over to barter with. When my laptop died, a friend who knows about such things fixed it for me in return for a jar of my chunky plum jam – apparently it’s his wife’s favourite! The local mechanic is quite fond of my chutney.
Eggs are the same: a box from our own chickens has been used as payment for all sorts of favours, and cake works too – I recently found myself chopping brambles outside the church with a few other islanders in return for tea and cake (I’m not joking when I say I sometimes think this island is fuelled entirely by cake!).
One of my self-reliance dreams was to keep honeybees, and produce enough of my own honey to be able to use it in all my baking so I didn’t have to buy sugar any more. I did keep bees for a couple of years, but I started having a worse reaction every time I got stung. Their hive was in the garden so we couldn’t always stay a great distance away from them, so we made the decision to rehome them elsewhere on the island. While I was really disappointed about this, I know it was for the best.
However, all was not lost as I recently negotiated what I think is the best trade deal *ever* with a new friend who has a farm in France: 1.5 litres of French forest honey from her own land, in exchange for two dozen of our own oysters. I definitely think I got the better deal there, but she was very pleased with her oysters!
Over the years we have also swapped our oysters with local fishermen for crabs and lobsters, and I do an annual oyster swap with some people I met through Instagram. They are self-sufficient in fruit and vegetables (another dream of mine!) so every year I send them a box of oysters, and they send me a parcel of seeds and cuttings. So far I have received, amongst other things, Majorcan Pea Beans, Karmazyn broad beans, an unknown variety of very early rhubarb, cuttings of a couple of varieties of perennial kale, Bush Baby marrow and Crystal Lemon cucumber seeds, yacon crowns, honeyberry cuttings, and some varieties of tomato that *actually* grow well on the west coast of Scotland!
Over the last few weeks, I have been taking photos for a friend’s website. She has a skincare business, and as payment for photographing her products I got to keep them – it’s quite a big box of lotions and potions! There are a few things I’ll hold onto for myself (I really like a couple of her moisturisers, and you can never have too many bars of soap!) and others I will give to various family members as Christmas presents.
But my favourite swap ever? A couple of years ago we had issues with our broadband, and had no internet in the house for several weeks. On Friday mornings during this time I would cycle along to a friend’s house with my laptop to check bank accounts, send invoices, and do all the other fun stuff related to running a business that requires access to the internet. In return I did a bit of mending for her. It makes me smile every time I see her wearing her woolly hat with the chicken on it, that I darned to cover up a hole.
Obviously swaps like these aren’t going to work in every scenario: I’m pretty sure the local supermarket would tell me where to go if I offered to darn some socks in exchange for my weekly shopping! But if there is some future SHTF situation, then having a network of people with different skills/products that you can barter with will be invaluable. If I only ever give you one piece of advice, it is this: work on building those connections now. You may never actually need to rely on them, but it will enrich your life and strengthen your community, even if that SHTF situation never arises.
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I love this, and in my urban community similar things also flourish. Especially now we have local chat groups to ease communication with each other, which has surprised me. I make my own kefir and the grains naturally multiply, so I offer them on the allotment site WhatsApp. When my beloved sourdough starter died, I was given a new one by someone on the group. Likewise I’ve given away spare saved seeds abd produce, and been a grateful recipient too. Not necessarily direct swaps, but I find the old saying that what goes around comes around to be very true.
I very much liked this post. Urban bartering isn’t as common I think but I do have a jam for honey arrangement which makes both parties very happy.