Writings

Follow your bartering bliss on craigslist

If you're watching the latest get-rich-quick scheme on TV, turn it off.

I'm about to reveal a major financial secret to help you get more than your money's worth out of every transaction in your life.

But before I go on, you'll have to forget your usual way of thinking about financial matters. Don't worry, I'm not going to brainwash you into going vegan. Take a slow, deep breath and forget everything you know about money and evaluating products and services.

OK, now consider your normal situation: It's a busy afternoon and you have your eye on something new, some delightful shiny prize. You want it, and decide to peddle some of your old stuff to raise the cash. So you sell enough items and finally purchase the new item.

Ready for the major financial secret? You lost. In every one of your transactions, you've lost time and money. Actually both sides have lost, including you and whomever you've sold to and bought from. The solution? Barter. The old-school swap. It's the secret to financial joy.

In barter, everyone wins. Barter removes three important middlemen. First, it eliminates the person who bought your old things. Second - and this is the key step - bartering eliminates the process of converting things to cash and back again. Placing monetary values on what you own and what you need always reduces their actual value. People don't like to fork over a lot of cash for things that lack the plasticky "new" smell.

Third, barter eliminates the store where you purchased your new prize item with your cash (remember: new plastic-smelling things always cost more).

Voila! Through the directness of barter, both sides get more than their money's worth.

As a bonus, you also feel better bartering, because you meet the person who knows the most about the item you're getting, and because you get to see the new home of the item you're trading away.

Ready to barter? If so, a great way for us Bay Area folks to swap is only a quick mouse click away. If you're fairly hip and live in San Francisco, you already know what I'm talking about: craigslist.org. Even if you're tragically square and live in Fremont, you've probably overheard conversations about craigslist. This home of never-ending, community-loving, open-bartering bliss lets you skip all the tedious commercial steps mentioned above. You save time and money, and at this e-agora you'll find everything from firewood to Fender guitars to foot massages.

Craig Newmark, the Craig who founded craigslist in 1998, strongly agrees with the barter secret. "Not only does everyone get more than their money's worth, dollar-wise," he says. "Barter also builds up what network theorists call 'social capital,' which is basically the sense of trust people have in one another as they go through daily life. And as the online world evolves this is becoming even more important in our lives.

"We started the barter section of our site in 2000," Newmark says, "after realizing how well barter fit into our core mission to help people address their everyday needs. And it has become amazingly popular - in the first year or so we had about 1,000 barter postings per month; now we're up to nearly 10, 000."

Craigslist seems to be unique, at least as a free and open site. Bricks and mortar swap-meets happen all over the country, usually around farmer's markets or trade conventions, and some Internet virtual swap meets have sprung up - but not with the fast real-time feel of craigslist. EBay has tremendous volume, but mostly in selling rather than barter, and it's not specific to the Bay Area.

Through barter - of ideas and information as well as things - craigslist has spawned and nurtured extensive community economics in the Bay Area. It's not extravagant to say craigslist supports a good part of the Bay Area economy.

Thousands of people find jobs and apartments for free and engage in thousands of other transactions that never lose money to the nebulous profit motive.

Barter reveals that what makes up an "economy" is less tangible than economists would have us believe. They tell us production and consumption are all that matter, but recessions end and begin at times that rarely match their predictions. Barter depends on "social capitalism" in which the quality and honesty of our social and financial interactions dictate the health of the economy.

In any event, it is the simple joys that please the folks who are in on this major financial secret.

"We know that people barter for many reasons," says Craig. "Some barter just to participate in the purest form of recycling. Others barter to save money, to have fun, or to meet people."

They all get more than their money's worth.

Tony Brasunas publishes Garlic & Grass, a political Web magazine, manages the Web site of the American Society on Aging, and wants to barter his old computer monitor for a bicycle lock. E-mail: tony@garlicandgrass.org.