Bartering

[Little Lou]

(23 May 2013, 08:34)bigpaul Wrote: trading will only happen if you have a SURPLUS of something, most people will only have enough to live on..for many years.

This is a fair point, but I can see circumstances when even an ordinary prepper might well have a surplus. For instance, I have two plum trees, any one of which produces more fruit at a time than I can eat, cook, bottle and preserve. I'd be delighted to give a neighbour a few pounds of plums in exchange for (say) some eggs from his chickens, of which I have none.

Scavenging might produce a surplus too. For instance, suppose I stumbled across an unlooted industrial building which stored lots of batteries. True, you can never have too many of these things, but I wouldn't want to sit on 5,000 AA batteries when my food supplies were running low. I'd certainly barter in that situation.

Or there's the unexpcted need that could come up. Shouldn't happen to a prepper, but it easily could to a newbie like me - or to anyone who's caught out by a new medical condition or a fire that destroys your whole fuel cache. For those eventualities I have barter currency of alcohol and cigarettes, which would save me trading away something I absolutely need to survive.

Ideally I agree that self-sufficiency is best, but for some it may not always be possible.