I have a dcd who is a carpenter. I was thinking of asking if they would be interested in trading, daycare for installing crown molding on my kitchen cabinets.
Has anyone ever done that?
Opinions on good or bad idea?

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I have. Once with a carpenter for a room of wall-to-wall bookshelves. Once with a farmer for food. Once with a handyman for a bunch of small jobs. I loved getting the work done in a way that felt beneficial to both of us. However, in the last case, I messed up, letting him owe me time for child care I'd already provided. Big mistake. They left, and he didn't finish the work. Now I'm having to work on getting money from them.

The other lesson I learned is that your "non-paying" job might rank very low on their priority list. In both cases where dads were building stuff for me, whenever another job came up, they'd take that and mine would wait. In the future, I will have to set a strict timeline about when the work will be completed and make it clear that we are bartering for future child care services, not concurrently.

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Yes I have! Mostly its just for Childcare services. If I need babysitting, I may offer a daycare parent a free day of Childcare if they would be willing to come over and watch my kids for an evening. It's worked out great in the past (although now I have a regular sitter who I swap with who isn't a dcp). That's a pretty easy one though. For work that needs to be done I'd definitely have a contract outlining everything!

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Thanks. I think I will go for it. I'll just make sure he understands its for future care.

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Yes! For logo design. The only problem is you can't write it off if you barter rather than get a receipt. But I was grateful for an awesome logo

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Not exactly. I charged for childcare and he cut my lawn as he had a lawn service. It wasn't a good match because he'd wait too long to cut my lawn and half the time I had to keep on him about when he was going to cut it. I would tell him come on cause the kids couldn't play in grass that long. Then he hired my son and that was a fiasco. He ended up having him work and then not pay him. At first he did pay him. I told my son to stop working since he would probably never get caught up paying him. Meanwhile this guy was buying expensive guy toys that he would even show my son. He was into those remote control airplanes and also aquariums. Finally this guy's mom paid my son out of her own money as she said she was so grateful that I watched her grandson and felt bad for the way her son had acted. That was so sweet of her because she had no obligation to pay for her son's debts. Never again I swore! BUT, at least I got my childcare money as I thought it best to keep them separate. I wouldn't barter but I would hire him and he would hire me. So glad I kept it separate.

That said, I agree with the above. Make some hard and fast rules and stick to them.

Laurel

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Make sure everything is in WRITING before you do anything. Have all contingencies laid out so there is no room for dispute.

I have a mother who got really far behind and is trading house work for part of what she owes. She's pretty much caught up now. It's working out for us because I'm getting some deep cleaning I need done and she's getting childcare and lunch out of it.

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I have bartered before and done so successfully but there are rules to doing it legally so make sure you cross your T's and dot your i's in the transaction.

http://tomcopelandblog.com/what-happens-when-you-barter

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Thanks Blackcat!

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Personally I'd rather exchange money, just to keep things businesslike.

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