I recently found a fantastic way to spend barter credits for those of you that are barter-spending-challenged. I am on the school board for a small private school that is cash-poor but has several thousand dollars in barter credit. When I found out that the school was planning a silent auction and raffle I immediately realized a great use for their barter credits. I went out and bought many items on trade that they could include in the sale which effectively converted their barter to cash. Items that I purchased that were particularly popular were a year’s supply of flowers from a local florist and a year’s supply of cookies from a local bakery. We also had hard goods like jewelry and a nice keyboard. For the service-oriented items like flowers and cookies, I made sure that we had a dozen cookies and a nice bouquet of flowers on the auction table so people could see what they were bidding on rather than just having a written description. In the end the event was a success and cash was earned for the school. Although I was spending credits that the school had on-hand, this would also be a great way to donate to any favorite cause. If you know they are have a sale soon, let them know that you would like to donate an item and of course you can have a full tax write-off if the organization is a legitimate non-profit.
Barterfanatic.com 