Do you have a skill or service you can offer to people? If so, consider bartering rather than buying. Bartering is where you trade skills or services with someone else such that you “pay” for what you get with the skill or service you bring to the table. In our age of credit cards and cash and heavy consumerism, we’ve gotten used to the idea that we have to actually pay for everything, rather than thinking whether or not we can use the bartering system to our advantage.
This won’t work everywhere, obviously. You can trade web design work for a shirt at Banana Republic or a skirt at Ann Taylor, but you could offer up web design work for accounting services or a new roof on your house (web design for a roofing company?).
What are some of the benefits of bartering? Well, you aren’t taxed, for one. So you can get “paid” for your work without having to pay taxes and the other party can get “paid” for their work without having to pay taxes. So in effect, Uncle Sam is upset but neither of you are! With taxes as high as 50% (after you factor in federal, state, and FICA taxes), that’s a significant amount of savings there!
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