Champagne life on a beer budget? Try bartering
By Tamara E. Holmes • Bankrate.com

Looking to enhance your life without breaking your budget? Try bartering as a way to gain access to more items and services without making a dent in your bank account. Whether you're looking for singing lessons or resume-writing help, the act of bartering allows you to use your skills as payment for items or services.

Valerie V. Gay, a financial planner in Philadelphia, often advises clients to find ways to barter for products and services they want but that do not fit their budget. "You can't barter for your gas service, and typically you don't barter for your car payment," she says. "But those things that help to improve your quality of life can be bartered for."

Gay first discovered the power of bartering years ago when she used her desktop-publishing skills to create an individualized letterhead, and some of her colleagues started asking her to do the same for them.

"I heard about this woman who had become a massage therapist," Gay says. "I love massages. So I said to her, 'Look, I love massages, I can't afford to go to the spa all the time. In exchange for giving you a letterhead, will you give me massages?' And that's what started it all."

Gay isn't the only person who has discovered the benefits of bartering. A number of Web sites such as TradeAway.com and All That Women Want have sprung up to help people who are interested in bartering get connected.

Alina Sandor, a freelance writer and illustrator in Meridian, Idaho, posted a message online that she was interested in bartering her copywriting services for "just about anything!"

"There is a lot of waiting involved," Sandor says of the experience. After about a month, she did start to see some responses and managed to barter for publicity for her writing and services to her home.

Finding a suitable partner
If you're interested in bartering, it's important to first figure out what you have to offer.

"Look at yourself and see what skill set is a valuable asset," says Gay. "It could be a hobby; it could be a professional skill."

One of the questions to ask yourself, she says, is, "Do people pay for this service already? If the answer is yes, you may be able to find something that someone will be willing to barter for."

Once you determine what you're going to barter with, it's important to put a price tag on it. Bartering only works if the exchanged products or services are equitable. "It can't be, 'I'll paint your entire house if you tie my shoe,'" says Gay.

One way to determine how much your services are worth is to price them in the market. For example, if you're a great cook and you're offering to teach someone how to cook, check around to see how much it would cost that person to take cooking lessons. If the cost averages $75 per lesson, then your service is worth approximately $75 per lesson. You'd want to barter for something that's worth roughly the same amount.