My twin sons just turned 9. Although my wife normally plans birthday parties this one was my responsibility as she is recovering from neck surgery. My challenge was to come up with the coolest all-barter party I could. Here’s what we did:
- We picked up my sons and their friends from school in a limo. Finding a 100% barter for the limo was a challenge. I ended up finding a company owned by someone I knew a little and traded him for gift certificates to a local gym.
- We had the limo drive us to a local bakery that specializes in cupcakes. There each kid was able to decorate and eat their own cupcake.
- We then had the limo take us to a local amusement park where the I had prepaid “credit cards” for each of them that were good for mini-golf, bumper cars, video games, etc. We hung out and played for a couple hours.
- Unfortunately we don’t have a pizza joint close to us that I can barter with so we had the limo stop by Costco for a couple pizzas. That was quite an experience. I never would have believed that I would shop at Costco via limousine.
- The kids then had a slumber party, but the next day we took them to a local gym where their favorite basketball coach gave the whole gang of kids a private lesson.
- Lastly the “goodie bag” for each kid was a $5 gift certificate from a local frozen yogurt shop.
Whew! The only cash I spent was on tips (to the bakery lady and limo driver) and $20 worth of Costco pizza.
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