To trade or Not to trade

When the time comes that you need to survive, you will have to think about things you need, things you don’t need and things you would like to use as bartering tools.

You will have people in your area that you are familiar with that you know have goods that you would like to have. For example where I live I am surrounded by dairy farms and have a few neighbors who raise goats. I could benefit from the goods produced by the animals or having one of the animals for myself.

Some of the other things you might want to barter for are things like:

Gas

Flour

Fresh produce you did not grow

Tools

Guns or ammunition

The point is as prepared as you want to be, you are going to eventually need some additional supplies. Because of this reason you should keep an up to date inventory of all your goods at all times! With this list you can know what you have that you are willing to get rid of and what it is that you need the most. 

Most likely in a post-apocalyptic setting there will be some people that are traveling traders. You will want to be prepared to work with these people quickly so that they continue to return to you when they are back in your area. These will be the people that still work by the principle "time is money" so you want to not waste their time. 

You also want to be up to date with your neighbor’s needs and wants. If your neighbor and his family have a never ending surplus of milk from their farm and you have a never ending surplus of eggs you can work out a weekly trade with them. 

There are some risks to trading though. By trading with people your goods will be known to strangers. One possible way to work through this is to never let another person see your surplus of goods. Always have a small stock somewhere easily accessible that you will invite them to see. This will give the impression that you have only a scarce amount of goods, when you actually have a large surplus stored elsewhere. 

Keep your list handy of the needs you are hoping to get when a trader comes along and if you can, always test the product before the trade is final! Let’s say you have been waiting for the trader and last time you two did business you asked them to be on the watch for a gas powered chainsaw and some gas. Before you make the final transactions ask the trader to start the chainsaw up! 

In the end you will almost have to trade to get certain products. Plus there will be those certain things that we as modern humans do not want to abandon, such as chocolate or fresh coffee or that sealed bottle of Jack that will cost an arm and a leg but you cannot pass on it!