Bartering and Trading Part II

Bartering and Trading Part II

Now that you have had some time to digest what was posted yesterday, lets now take this all up a few more notches:

If things go really belly up at some point, which it is bound to the way things are going, then we are going to need to have things to trade for what we cannot supply ourselves.

This is just basic common sense. I am going to write a few examples here of what we can use as Barter or trade items. Please, do keep in mind that the list is virtually endless and I am only give-ing a few examples here.

What follows will be more centred around if a disaster strikes, whether that is a natural disaster such as flooding, earthquake, etc., war, a terrorist attack or a global financial collapse.  So it is more dealing with what items we are best to stock up on for long term needs rather than a short term one.

This does not however negate their use now, but simply means that they may not necessarily be of use immediately.

Barter or tradable Items:

1. Tobacco:

Young Tobacco Plants photo credit Wikipedia

Tobacco seeds are not an option here as we cannot get them to begin with as they are forbidden  in this State, but for areas that do have access to them then they would make a good barter item although having actual tobacco might be a better bargaining tool rather than the seeds.

Field of flowering tobacco almost ready for first pick. Photo credit Wikipedia

Not many will want tobacco seeds for medicinal purposes, simply because only a very small percentage will actually know how to use them. You can bet though, that there will be a whole lot of people wanting tobacco itself for smoking, especially in the beginning of a major disaster or collapse for instance.

For those of us that do not smoke, we need to remember that there are people heavily addicted to tobacco and like any other drug they will just about trade their own children for a cigarette. This makes tobacco itself an extremely powerful trading item if you choose to have it for that purpose. This is one of those conscience items – should we or shouldn’t we? Only you can make that call, remembering that tobacco also have other uses than just smoking it.

For folks that can grow tobacco this would be a worthwhile sideline and to store up the leaves cut and bagged in small vacuum sealed bags. These could be stored in large plastic buckets in a cool place.

Dunhill Early Morning Pipe tobacco photo credit Wikipedia

For the non-smokers tobacco makes a very powerful and natural insecticide for the garden, just don’t go spraying it on your tomatoes at all.

2. Coffee:

 

Instant Coffee

Coffee might also be a good trade item but again unless you can grow it yourself there is not a lot of point as it will be one of those commodities that once it runs out, it runs out. And that could be very quickly. Here coffee is not cheap to buy and it is not something that people generally would stock up on for that very reason.

Personally I can see our hard earned money better spent on other things. If looking at beverages as a trade item, then I would tend more to go towards tea. Tea can be grown in a lot of places that coffee can’t be, it is much easier to grow and to process.

3. Tea:

Loose Leaf Tea

There is also a distinct advantage to tea as a trade item because we will be able to grow herbs for making herbal teas. Even though this is a very simple and basic principle many will not know how to do this or even want to be bothered, but they will drink the tea.

So for me tea would be a good tradable item because I can grow it easily either as real tea or as a herbal blend which makes the trade item cheap for me to supply but has a good value for trading.

4. Knives:

 Selection of knives and cleaver

Good blades will be extremely hard to find so retaining those in a locked cabinet will be a home preservation strategy. As horrible as it is, in the beginning of a collapse for example, knives will become weapons for others to use to take what they want forcibly. The fewer weapons there are available the greater we can help reduce that aspect of things and reduce the risk to injury or worse, for ourselves and our families.

After a time when things settle down and that could take some time, then having a stock pile of suitable steel that you could manufacture a basic knife from would be a great trade item.

The steel itself could be traded or if you have cutting equipment and a grinder then you might be able to go into business making crude but usable knives to trade.

I think that knives are a tricky one simply because there are going to be far more people wanting to use them for bad, rather than to use them as they are actually intended.

Do any of us really want to trade an item that could potentially be used to kill our neighbour or one of our own families for a bag of potatoes for example? I think not.

This one will be a personal conscience thing when the time comes. Like I said it might be better to store some reasonably good flat steel under the shed for when order is resumed to some sort of normality and then make knives. Having blacksmithing skills is going to be a massive advantage eventually and one of the most prized trade options.

This knife one does weigh heavily on me and I would tend to go with my latter suggestion on this one of just storing the steel to make knives later on should it be necessary.

Chaos is going to rule in the beginning of any disaster to collapse, and anyone with any degree of common sense should be able to foresee this and therefore NOT having items that could be used against us or our family would be uppermost in my mind if only from a safety point of view.

I also know that this one is not going to go down well with many folks.  But self-preservation must be the top of all considerations in a circumstance such as a massive natural disaster or a total collapse of society.

5. Gold and Silver:

 Gold Bullion Photo credit Wikipedia

 Silver Bullion Photo credit Wikipedia

It worries me a lot that greedy people are pushing the fact that we need to convert all our money to gold and silver.  And what is more disturbing is the fact that so many gullible people are doing just that. All that is doing is driving the price of gold and silver through the roof and making a small group of people extremely wealthy.

In any disaster scenario, gold and silver will just become a worthless metal or something that only a very small percentage will have and this will begin the massive power and domination over the masses all over again. This is what is so wrong with our society already today.

Having things like gold and silver in the beginning is a massive ticket to getting yourself killed by people that want the power and to dominate over others. Sadly this is all that some people can think of, because they are simply too lazy to work for what they need, and it is so much easier to just take what they want and then to bully over people that have less than they do. Have a look around society now to see this already in place.

Eventually gold and silver or even money for that matter, will just become worthless as history has shown us on more than one occasion.

Just look at the great depression and the great wars, to see how the value of money became worthless. Paper money was burned to keep people warm and coins were melted down to make bullets to kill people and the like. We will see this again for sure.

6. Salt:

 Plain Coarse Cooking Salt

To me I see one of the most useful trade and barter items to be salt. People are going to need to be able to preserve what meat they have or can hunt, and salting will be basically the best way to do this if not the only way, to preserve meat and other items such as cheese even. 

 Himalayan Pink Salt

Salt will be extremely hard to get hold of unless you live near the ocean and can actually produce it yourself. Salt is relatively cheap and an excellent item to stock up on for trading purposes as well as the continued use we will need it for.

 Plain Rock Salt

7. Sugar & Honey:

 Raw Sugar

These two will also become very valuable trading items and well worth stocking up on. Raw sugar will keep far, far longer than white sugar will and honey will actually keep indefinitely. Honey will crystallise over time, but a simple case of warming it up brings it right back to liquid form again.

 Natural Raw Liquid Honey

Honey of course too, has amazing healing properties so it is one item that will be in high demand for medicinal purposes also, making it one of the most valuable items that we can store and use or trade.

There are so many other items that will make excellent bartering or trade items but the above are just a few ideas to get the old grey brain matter working.

Every location will have different needs when all goes wrong as to what cannot be produced there easily or not at all and what can be.

The primary function is to ensure that you store enough to see your family and immediate neighbours through. Having a surplus of some items will be an advantage to a point most definitely. But the reality is that we are never going to be able to store enough to keep us going in the case of an absolute and total collapse for very long.

We must learn to be as self-sufficient and sustainable as is humanly possible. If we don’t, then we will eventually cease to exist, it really is that simple.

The reality is that we are going to have to give up some things and these will be different for every family and community.

One of the most important trade items is actually going to be practical skills. If you can garden and grow food then you have a valuable trade item, several in fact with the food that you can use to trade. Then there are the preserves goods we can make ad trade from what we grow.

If you can raise animals again there are several tradable items there especially if you can also make soap, cheese and butter. You can trade eggs, meat and milk and so on.

 Fresh free range eggs

For me there are other important skills we can all learn too, like blacksmithing and herbal medicine and simpler things like bread making, weaving, and spinning etc.

Having items to trade is grand but having a good community network will be just as important if not more so, to give stability and strength to a community. There is power and safety in numbers. Not one person can survive alone because it is literally impossible to learn all the skills needed but collectively a group of people can work together to enable and ensure that everyone survives because they can all bring different skills to that group that will benefit everyone as a whole.

These are just my random thoughts while sitting here in the wee small hours of the morning to finish off this topic at present on Bartering and Trading. 

I would love to read what others thoughts are on this topic, and what your ideas are for being able to deal with and survive should such a scenario ever eventuate. 

How will you and your family survive? 

Are you prepared?

Please share you thought, ideas and comments in the comments section below so that other may also learn.

©Tina