My favourite bartering item I am storing!

Bought a bunch more Bic lighters (Woolworths has started stocking two packs on the shelves so you don't have to purchase at customer service with the cigarettes). These should make great barter items - especially packaged with tea lights.

Hmm... knowledge. I have lots of knowledge and ideas that I can carry anywhere and have value to people.

Thanks bud, I'm all about win-win and I get back easily as much as I give here.

I guess also it's for everyone as trade might not be just items, what skills/services and knowledge do you possess that might be of use in an Austere and changing environment? Can you sew well, imagine if international trade stopped for some reason... we have almost zero locally produced goods? What about growing food, in Cuba during the 'special times' everyone started growing a garden. How do you water and fertilize a garden? Can you teach people about water filtration so they prevent disease and medicine that is rare and hard to get? These are business opportunities in all but the worst kind of situation. We see this even in Bosnia with Selco who refilled lighters using a LPG tank he had. I have a personal friend who's family were also there who sold fake 'nike' T-shirts, making enough to flee the conflict, fashion it seems was still important in the middle of a civil war. Do you run impromptu workshops, sell booklets, sell your skills for a certain price, manufacture simple but needed items? In Argentina the most needed jobs [at least from one prepper] during their collapse were teachers and security. Can you run a small school for kids? You might not be able to ask much, aka 'change what the market will bare' though it might also be enough to get you by. 

Another example, there's so many solar panels on roofs, but most are tied to the grid and useless if the grid goes down. Lead acid batteries [car batteries] can handle a bit of over charging so long as the current's not too high [they just bubble] so roof panels turn into daily 12V power, perhaps for lighting for a bit of normalcy using a car battery and a car globe.  Perhaps you hook up car USB converters [most people have one] and I could do it all of that with a knife, though other tools would be better of course.  With a nail [I'd rather have a soldering iron!] I could easily construct a basic power regulator for most things that plug into the wall.  That's because I carry with me knowledge in electronics. 

I also get that there's situations where all of that is far too dangerous, perhaps it's disease or perhaps it's violence, though those times, at least in history are short lived if they happen at all. I plan for both, and at some point things change again, it's always done that. In the fall of Rome, it was depopulated by almost 99.7% in a year because the surrounding countryside couldn't support the population and other factors. The thing is, 30,000 of the 1 million people stayed/survived. That's the point of prepping, to give a greater chance of being that percentage if things did suddenly change. If you can support yourself through such times through self sustainability, supplies or trade or all of those things, then things will reach equilibrium again at some point, trade always returns. What skills/product can you bring to market in such times that would be of value? That's hard to quantify, because it would depend, though skills have the advantage of being transferable anywhere. My wife can make anything with a needle and thread, even without a machine if need be.

What if there were power shortages, the market would be wanting power for charging phones/lighting for music/distraction/comfort. What if I hired myself out with a few batteries on a trolley that I hire out or offer a service in charging say car batteries or phones? Sure there's risks in it, there's risks in any of these trades, the thing here and perhaps my theme in most situations you'll still need a job unless you can grow enough of your own food. What if it's an economic collapse that goes on for a decade as happened in parts of the former soviet union?

Knowledge is with you, sometimes you can trade items for it, sometimes it might just be good will, which in some ways might be the most valuable of all available items.

Items are fine, one of our members was correct also in presenting the more extreme possible situation where food is the only thing that matters, not tea, I think like all risk management, having a variety of options available give you more choices and he who is most flexible, wins. Do you have potential business ideas that would work if we turned into the third world?  Having some of those things in mind might have you be able to run that sewing machine, or encourage you to put aside more seeds.  Obviously we want to have multiple uses for said items as well and as always prep for nothing happening too.  I really do want a large forge and 10 CNC machines so I can turn scrap into products...  the thing is if nothing happened, that's a lot of money for something I don't use. 

I love hearing these real world examples, thanks frostbite!