Cash poor, talent rich

Single mother uses bartering to gain more financial freedom

By Leah Mayes
The Portland Upside
August2009

Photo by Shane Reeves

Leah uses her kitchen skills to barter for goods and services such as food, health care and tattoo work.

I’m a single mother who sometimes finds it difficult to make ends meet. It’s hard for me to find the time to work, care for my 5-year-old, and still be able to get a massage, acupuncture, and save time to play. To be able to afford to go places and do things outside of our home is a challenge. In short, money can create a lot of stress for me. At times, I find myself getting overwhelmed and turning into a person I prefer to avoid.

On those days I’ve thought I would love to do without money, or be able to do with less, not by sacrificing the things that are important to me, but by using a different way to fund the things I need and want.

Thankfully, I’ve found an answer: bartering.

There once was a time when money was not traded in exchange for goods. Animals, handmade furniture, skills and crops were the currency. When you went to market or to seek out assistance from someone with skills you had not mastered, you traded with what you did have, what you could make, or with the knowledge that you possessed.

Midwives would trade their services for herbs, food, farm animals. A carpenter would trade his handcrafted furnishings for tools, horses, and seed. Wagons were brought to market filled with handmade rugs, clothes, and pots and would return full again with items needed to live.

When did we lose our trade line? The traditional system of bartering seems like a long way off in this society of hourly wages, 401K plans and retirement packages. Yet it has been my experience that bartering, like many things, has not disappeared completely. It has merely hidden in the background waiting for the right time.

I’ve been fortunate to tap into a good barter system in my life, bringing food, alternative health care, massage, child care, gardening skills and much more to my family. Money is great for some things, even needed for others, but not for everything. And in a society where the mighty dollar rules, it liberates me to be able to fall back on such a tried and true concept of exchange.

I have thousands of dollars worth of tattoo work on my body, for example, and I’ve actually paid very little cold hard cash for any of it. I have been able to trade with skills of my own such as cooking, house-cleaning, weeding, harvesting, child care, and also with my own art work.

Often I run into people who want to try bartering but don’t know what skills they have to trade. That’s when I ask, can you cook, clean or draw? Can you garden, knit, or do you have a truck to loan for hauling? Are you good at math, sewing or cutting hair? We all have skills that can benefit each other. We all have talents, tools, and ideas. And yes, we all have needs, so let’s help each other out.

By trial and error I have found that I will never know if someone is open to barter until I ask. So get creative! Maybe you can get that dental work you’ve needed. Or learn a new trade. Perhaps the perfect baby-sitter could use the extra zucchini in your garden.

The benefits of bartering are endless. Through bartering I have created relationships within my community, made friends, established a sense of confidence in myself and showed my child other ways of getting what she needs. With the money I save I can go camping or out to the movies with a friend. And that is always an upside.

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Leah Mayes, an all-around groovy lady, lives in Northeast Portland where she works hard to keep the peace while engaging in many adventures. She is currently working on three different children’s books.


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Making Room

By Leah Mayes
The Portland Upside
May 2009

One night last week I found myself in one of Portland’s finest, a watering hole filled up and down with characters. After ordering a drink and settling into my seat, I nodded “hello” to my neighboring bar fly. Seeing no one with whom I might have common interests, I decided to sit a while, observing the evening’s goings-on.

The man holding down the stool next to me appeared to be a good ol’ boy, complete with button-down shirt, hat, boots, jeans and an affinity for Pabst Blue Ribbon. Lo and behold, our conversation turned first to what we do for a living.

“I am a chef,” I said. “I love to cook. I have studied nutrition for the last seven years and I must admit to being a food snob at times. I specialize in organic cooking with an attention to vegan and vegetarian cuisine. How about you, cowboy?”

“Well,” he said, “I sell hamburgers. Flip um, sell um, all my life.”

I smiled. Turns out this good ol’ boy owns and operates two local McDonald’s eateries. I smiled again and I think I might have nodded, but rest assured, I wasn’t quite sure what to say next. My mind teetered between an urge to launch into a spiel about childhood diabetes on the rise, heart disease, and bad cholesterol (“Oh, by the way, did you see “Super Size Me?”) and an equally strong desire to politely excuse myself to find other conversation. In the end, I decided to just stay and listen. After all, I’d never met an owner of a McDonald’s. I figured this could be interesting and I might just get some dirt for my next nutrition speech.

Portly, bordering on the short side, good color in his cheeks, my side-kick appeared well-shaven and eager to make a friend. I found out that in addition to owning restaurants, this man loves to farm. He described plowing his fields on a tractor, on a sweet summer day in the sun, the wind blowing the tall grass around like waves. He smiled a lot. I felt that to him farming was a meditation.

I have no idea if this man was wealthy but in truth he seemed very humble. He spoke of working for McDonald’s his entire life, how the company has helped him make a family and take care of them. He honestly proclaimed his support for the intelligence behind the corporation, its ever-changing ability to keep up with what the public demands, the many employees he has supported through regular employment.

When I asked about quality, he talked of changed ingredients, additional menu items and lowering the fat content to help support healthier choices. Then with a flurry of one-liners gained from numerous team-building seminars, memorized every morning in the mirror, my well-shaven friend announced his excitement for life, the need to keep busy, a passion to succeed with his goals. He talked about not watching TV or movies, not wasting his precious time, time better spent improving himself and his life. He was impressive with his drive and appreciation, his smile and honest-to-goodness simplicity; a genuine man, living his life as he sees fit, taking his own path to the American, rags-to-riches dream; all held in the hands of a clown and supported by the Golden Arches. Over four billion served.

Served willingly, many would argue, and they have a good point. People living off the street stumble in when they find a buck; people walk in way too many times because they can’t stop themselves; people eat fast food just because it is easy.

This man and I had little in common. I could have argued left and right about the quality of meat he serves, the treatment of the cows his company slaughters, the robbery of American nutrition and much more. But I didn’t. Instead I noticed that we represented two opposite ends of the spectrum, sitting together reminiscing about what a field of tall grass looks like in the wind.

Some things are beautiful even if we don’t agree with them or understand them. Some things just are. Although I think we should fight for what we believe in, this time I didn’t feel the need to fight. I felt recognition for this man just as he is: a man, living his life, making choices. And though I myself would not choose the same, here we were making room for each other over a tall glass of cold beer. And that is an upside.


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