Thinking about how to survive after a major event? We’ll dive into the real challenges of bartering when money is gone and stakes are high for everyday folks like you. By the end, you’ll have a much clearer, more practical grasp of what it truly takes to make survival bartering work for your family.
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In this post
- Beyond the Basics of Barter
- The Illusion of Simple Barter in a Post-SHTF World
- Survival Bartering vs. Using Money: A Critical Distinction
- Risks and Limitations
- The “New Currency” Fallacy
- What should I store to use as barter items?
- Trading Your Talents: Bartering Skills and Their Realities
- FAQ
- Related Worst-Case Scenario Content
- How Can the Survival Mom Prepping Planner Help You?
Beyond the Basics of Barter
When money’s no good, bartering—trading goods directly—becomes the way we get what we need. You’ve probably read a lot about how it’ll be the norm after a disaster, especially at the start, like what happened in Chile in ’82 or Argentina in 2001.
But most of those conversations miss the mark. They don’t dig into the real challenges of bartering for everyday essentials. his is survival bartering, and it’s a skill you’ll absolutely need to master.
The Illusion of Simple Barter in a Post-SHTF World
Most people think barter is merely “I’ll trade you this for that.” In a pure, simple sense that is so. However, where the rubber meets the road, where theory smacks hard into the face of reality, it isn’t nearly that simple and easy. “Barter” is plainly not the same thing as “money” — just using things like matches, seeds, clean water, rounds of ammunition in place of coins and paper money.
Survival Bartering vs. Using Money: A Critical Distinction
Like it or not, money, as we know it, is a pretty effective way to get things. We hand over cash for the products and services we want, and it works so well because it’s so generic. The money you get (or spend) can be used for anything you want, whenever you want it, assuming all else is equal. You don’t have to know exactly what you’ll spend that money on the moment you receive it
You can use money for food, clothes, medicine, fuel, transportation, or even fun. Or, you can just hang onto it for a rainy day. Money doesn’t spoil, expire, or suddenly go bad, if we’re ignoring inflation and devaluation for a minute.
Bartering is a completely different beast. When you’re thinking about a trade, you have to consider right then and there what you’re actually going to do with the item you’re getting. It’s super risky to accept something if you’re not sure how you’ll use it.
Risks and Limitations
Bartering might sound simple, but let me tell you, when your life depends on it, things get complicated fast. There are some serious drawbacks to relying on direct trades in a post-SHTF world.
Lost Chances
You might pass on an item today because you don’t need it, only to desperately wish you had it tomorrow. Opportunities for truly useful trades can vanish in an instant, and once they’re gone, they’re gone. It’s a real head-scratcher trying to figure out what you might need down the line versus what you absolutely need right now.
Stuck with Stuff You Can’t Use
Ever taken something just because it was offered, hoping it’d be useful, only to find it’s just gathering dust? In a barter situation, you might accept an item thinking it’ll come in handy, but then it turns out to be dead weight. Or, even worse, you take a big risk on something you hope to trade again later, and that doesn’t pan out either. Now you’re stuck with something you can’t use or move.
The “New Currency” Fallacy
Relatedly, many web sites and blogs state: “.22 ammunition will be the new money!” in a post SHTF environment. Well, .22 ammo is only good if you have a .22 firearm. If not, you either won’t accept the exchange, or take on additional risk by accepting something you may (or may not) be able re-barter later for something you do need.
Another example: Consider a post-natural disaster scenario like Katrina. Suppose someone comes to you with a brand new big screen TV wanting to trade it for food. In more normal times the TV has value because you can use it right away. But after a disaster it might be weeks or even months before power and cable is restored to your area so what good is a big screen TV? It’s just a giant paperweight.
What should I store to use as barter items?
So, what exactly should you be stashing away for bartering? The simple answer is: it largely doesn’t matter as much as you might think.
You Can’t Guess What People Will Want
There’s no crystal ball to tell us exactly what folks will want most after a disaster. Sure, some things will likely always have a demand, like food, water, medicine, defense items, and fuel. But honestly, those are probably the last things you’ll want to trade away when you and your family need them most!
Websites and videos are full of ideas for barter items: tobacco, alcohol, ammunition, salt, sugar, batteries, candles, needles and thread, even toothbrushes and dental floss! I recently saw a video where a guy claimed to have over 50,000 (yes, fifty thousand!) nails of all kinds, for building and for barter. And another site mentioned someone who stored so much toilet paper for Y2K that it took years to use it all up! Can you imagine the storage space for all that?
What Everyone Needs Versus What You Keep for Yourself
You also have to think about where you live. What’s valuable in a city might be different from what’s valuable in the countryside. Someone up North will value warm clothes a lot more than someone in Florida.
How Much Can You Really Store, and Why What You Store Matters
Let’s be real: you simply can’t turn your home into another Walmart. Nobody has the money or the space to hoard enough of every possible thing. That’s why it’s so important to think about what you can reasonably store.
If you’re going to collect items specifically for bartering, try to make sure they’re dual-purpose items – things you can use yourself if things go sideways, even if you never trade them. That way, if their barter value isn’t what you imagined (or if a disaster never even happens!), you haven’t wasted precious space, time, or money on something useless.
Trading Your Talents: Bartering Skills and Their Realities
Your skills are incredibly valuable after a disaster—think mending clothes, fixing pumps, or providing medical care. They don’t spoil or take up space, and they’re harder to steal than goods.
However, skills have their own unique limitations:
- Skills Aren’t Always “Liquid.” Like a big-screen TV without power, your talent for welding is useless if there’s no demand or resources right then. The need for specific skills can be just as unpredictable as for physical items.
- The “Tool Kit” for Your Talent. While your brain holds the knowledge, you often need tools to use your skills. A doctor needs supplies, a carpenter needs tools. So, your ability to barter your talent might still depend on having the right gear.
- Your Expertise Can Be a Target. Being the only one with a vital skill can make you a target. You’ll need to manage who you help and ensure your own safety, making it part of the barter equation.
Cultivating skills is essential, but understand their context. Consider what you’ll need to keep those talents active.
FAQ
Not at all! That’s one of the biggest misconceptions. Money is generic – you can use it for anything. With barter, you have to find someone who has exactly what you need and wants exactly what you have. It’s a direct swap, and that’s much harder to pull off consistently for daily needs.
Be very, very cautious about this idea. While some items might be highly valued, their usefulness can be very specific. If you don’t own a .22 firearm, then .22 ammo isn’t useful to you. You’d be relying on re-bartering it, which adds a huge layer of risk. Focus on core needs first, not speculative “currency.”
“Fair” is relative when survival is on the line. The value of an item will be dictated by immediate need, scarcity, and local conditions. A simple can of food might be worth far more than a fancy watch if someone is starving. Researching pre-SHTF values won’t help much. Your best bet is to understand your own needs, the other person’s needs, and to always prioritize items that truly help you and your family survive. Don’t be afraid to walk away if a trade doesn’t feel right or benefit you directly.
It is, but survival bartering takes it to a whole new level. It’s not just about swapping; it’s about assessing immediate utility, managing risk, understanding human desperation, and making split-second decisions that could impact your very survival. It’s common sense, magnified by extreme circumstances.
Related Worst-Case Scenario Content
- 15+ Ways to Find Free Food
- When Disaster Hits, How Do You Decide Between Looting and Scavenging to Survive?
- 13 Ways to Prepare for Hyperinflation (With Video)
- How to Survive in a Collapsing Economy Without Losing Your Mind
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Final Thoughts
You’ve seen that bartering isn’t just a simple swap meet when the world turns upside down. It’s a skill that demands foresight, flexibility, and a whole lot of common sense. By understanding the unique challenges of a cash-free world and focusing on smart, dual-purpose stockpiling, you’ll be much better prepared to navigate those tricky transactions and ensure your family’s needs are met, come what may.
Guest post by Master Po, originally posted February 7, 2011.
You can not forget the Bartering of skills, no storage needed.
Agreed. However, skills also follow the same rules as material items: a person must have need if your skill at that time to make the trade. For example, you may be a good teacher but if I have no children that does me no good. Or you may be a good auto mechanic but if fuel is scarce chances are autos won’t be used much.
I agree completely! Knowledge and skills are highly valued today when it comes to bartering!
Even just brute physical labor has value. Someone always needs something done they don't have the strength or other physical means to do.
Those backyard chickens will have a great amount of worth in a Barter Economy.
…even the one's the HOA doesn't know about. (shhh….hehehe!)
Get you some black star sex links , no not being kinky, they are a cross between two other breeds and are very quiet and are egg laying machines, not your meat birds mind you but good layers. Go to Murrey hatchery online, I've had super success with them. They can sell you them as well as meat birds or some that will do both. Just don't have any roosters. General town chicken rules are: if no one can hear or smell'em you're good!
I agree with the general gist of this article, and if I had to pick one particular generic barter-able category of items to stock up on, it would be food along with reasonably-sized portion containers. That is, you should have the necessary food reserves and zip-loc bags to make up one-pound bags of wheat, rice, corn, oats, grits, etc. Everybody needs to eat! But really, if we're down to bartering at this level, things have gotten really, really rotten, and it might be more reasonable to assume that some form of new currency will become popular, probably based on the good old standard for circulating coinage: silver. Stocking up on silver is a good idea anyway, given what's happening to our currency.
If you're expecting to barter food then I'd go with larger quantities of smaller units (i.e. a case of small cans instead of 1 big can and bags). The reason being if you give food in home-made containers (bags or other non-commercially sealed containers) it can make people wonder: If you have enough food to put in a bag it must be coming from a larger source so how much more do you have?! That can make you a better target for a criminal. But if you are trading smaller units (say cans) the psychology isn't the same.
BTW, if you have read or heard the comments from Ferfal in Argentina, he has reported that bartering really hasn't been all that widely implemented nor so successful where it has been done. Even in the post-economic collapse of 2001 Argentina currency and hard assets are still much more widely used than barter.
As others, I agree.
I would need to point out that the .22 ammo being a “new money” is pretty good advice.
You pointed out that you would need to have a .22 for it to be valuable to you but that isn’t the case. Here is why:
Ask anyone what the first gun they fired was and they would likely tell you it was a .22. I haven’t kept track but I would bet that 85% of the answers would be just that. There are more guns out there chambered to fire .22LR rounds than any other. It is fired not only in the rifles but also in most .22 pistols. But while there are many that require it most owners don’t have a large supply of the ammo….but as they will need ammo to hunt or defend themselves it will very quickly be in demand everywhere.
What is also different about the .22 rounds from most others is that it is rim fire rather than center fire. This means it is not practical to reload them…once the round is fired, it’s gone for good. This makes them even MORE valuable for all those guns without ammo are only valuable as a club. And defending yourself with a club is not the preferred method and certainly not the weapon of choice for hunting.
While a diverse collection of things would be good for barter I would think that IF you are buying something specifically for barter then .22 would be one of the strongest choices even if you don’t have anything that is chambered for it.
And finally….one of the things I save for barter and use is beer bottles that are not the twist off cap type. AND, of course, the caps. They are good for beer but they can also store any other drink, both alcohol and non-alcoholic. We brew our own beer and make our own wine and mead. We like the beer bottles for both in such an EOTWAWKI scenario as each bottle is a serving and therefore doesn’t require keeping after it’s been opened (and as we envision using all of these more for cooking and flavoring it allows us to open a bottle for a meal, mix it into the cooking, and be done with it).
We do not purchase these bottles outright…we only have them given to us or save the ones from the beer we buy for our own consumption. They don’t require storage inside so you don’t have to worry about space. I built a cheap, wooden box frame and put them all in there. When I need bottles for our latest brew I go out and just open up the box and pull out the bottles. The caps we need to store but those are super small and you can store thousands in a medium box on a closet shelf.
And if you REALLY want to save on the storage you can buy Grolsch beer (swingtop lids) and a bunch of the rubber gaskets…which can be used over and over again.
Do we have other barter stuff? Yeah…but only things we would also use ourselves. In fact the only thing I would recommend for barter that you wouldn’t use would be the .22LR ammo. There has also been a shortage of it….which means lots of people are feeling the economic pressures and feel something, somehow must be terribly wrong.
Learn skills. Most barter will be labor or trade based. People who have skills in low tech areas such as alcohol production, herbal medicine, animal husbandry, and food production will be much in demand.
I did not see any mention of the Tax Implications of bartering (pre-apocalypse). consider barter a taxable event. So, do not go around advertising you’ll “barter services for…” on Craigslist and such or you may get audited.
Who would have ever thought that toilet paper would be a hot commodity?
And elastic! I cannot find elastic to make masks and scrub caps.
Be blessed,
Laura of Harvest Lane Cottage