Bug Out Bartering

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The Advantages of Skills over Goods and the Value of Contacts

In a long term SHTF situation, money can be nearly worthless; with about as much immediate value as toilet paper or the useful metal a coin contains.  What people will really need and want to acquire from you are the essentials.  These include:

And for substance junkies (Do NOT use your own product):

Anything you can do to help supply these needs be it via the goods you have or the services you offer will help you survive another day.

The Value of Contacts in a Bug Out Situation

In a SHTF survival scenario your bartering skills can make the difference between a life of relative plenty and mere scraping by on meager resources.  Trade goods and valuable skills will always be sought after by others and are therefore valuable on the open market.

Two essential basic requirements for setting up a successful bartering encounter are:

  1. Finding someone who has resources, be it skills or goods, that you want
  2. who is willing to barter in exchange for skills or goods that you have.

This brings up an interesting point: contacts.  If your SHTF plan includes bugging out to a location where you are a virtual stranger to the local population then your bartering capabilities will be limited for at least several reasons:

  1. The smaller your social circle the less likely it will be that someone you know has a skill you can use or an item you would like to acquire.
  2. Likewise, the fewer people in contact with you the less potential there is for someone desiring your goods or special skills.
  3. Without having established a level of trust that can only come with time and familiarity, people are less likely to be willing to barter with you.  They may not even realize you have skills that can be of use to them.
  4. Your skill set is likely geared more toward your home environment.  For example, an urban dweller is less likely to have skills that are essential to a remote rural environment.  Ever shod a horse?

Because bartering is so valuable toward survival in a long term disaster situation, before you shoulder your bug out bag and head to the hills you may want to consider your bug out location, or even if you will bug out, in light of these important points.

Bartering Goods

Trade goods in the form of commodities that are difficult to acquire or manufacture will always be popular in a SHTF situation.

I have noticed a trend among the survivalist community toward stockpiling huge amounts of goods for consumption and trade.  Although this is the easy, albeit expensive, route toward successfully living through a SHTF scenario I question its long term viability as a complete survival strategy.

A problem with trade goods is that they tend to be finite by nature, which is precisely what makes them potentially valuable in the first place:

In short, your equipment and food stockpiles are finite and in the long term you will have to manufacture or trace for more in order to survive.

Acquire Skills for Long Term Bartering Capability

The advantages of acquiring skills and using them for barter instead of trading goods include:

Unlike trade goods, using your skills for barter actually increases them!  The more you use your skills:

These factors make your skills increase in valua on the open market as people become aware of them and compete for your attention.

The bottom line: save your goods for your own use whenever possible.  Always seek to acquire valuable skills that others are willing to barter for.   Continually be on the lookout to increase your stocks by offering your special skills to those who have something of value for exchange.

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DanT
Canada

Ron, do you recommend any particular skills or skill sets?

Survival Topics - often the best skill sets to develope for barter are

  • Those you can use yourself.
  • Skills in demand in the area you are located
  • Niche skills that few others have or have the necessary tools for.

For example, gunsmithing will always be a good service to provide since many people are not set up to do anything but the most basic of repairs for themselves.  While busy caching loads of ammunition many fail to provide spare parts or a means to repair their weapons.

Also medical, dental, and first aid skills will be in demand.  During a very bad, long term SHTF situation knowledge of local medicinal plants and their uses can go far toward reducing misery and even death.  If you can establish yourself as a go to person for the treatment of physical ailments then your ability to barter for survival is of a high order

jason
baltimore

While gunsmithing and medical are definitely great skills to have, possibly the most important is what was mentioned first above: "Those you can use yourself".  But more specifically (and this is obvious but I had to point it out) -- the ability to survive long-term on your own.

In long-term SHTF, that is what most people will seek. And if they see you doing just fine despite the circumstances, they will obviously be willing to trade labor or goods for some of your knowledge or assistance.

Theresa
Northern California

Excellent advice. Most people don't realize that supplies will be limited but skills only improve with use.

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