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Posts from the ‘Bartering’ Category

Mar 25

5 Comments

Bartering with Mavis – Trading Garden Work for Rice and Sugar

kids working in a garden

Yesterday I headed over to Girly Girl’s garden to do a little bartering. I used my love of pulling weeds {ha!} and mad gardening skills to tidy up her garden beds and plant her spring garden.

Luckily a few of her kiddos were wager to help.

snow sled with weeds

I asked one of the girls for a weed bucket and she brought me a snow sled. Awesome!

spring potatoes

There were still a bunch of new potatoes in last years potato bed and the kids had a ball searching for them. I think it made the digging and weed pulling go a lot faster because they all wanted to find some potatoes.

garden clean up

It took us just a little over 1 hour to clear 2 garden beds and pull the weeds in the surrounding areas.

mavis one hundred dollars a month

Removing the brush alongside the fence was never part of the deal thankfully.

waxing a SUV

For those of you who were wondering what Girly Girl was doing while I was pulling her weeds, she was playing Karate Kid and waxing her SUV with her husband Chino the Handyman.

raised garden beds

This is what the garden beds looked like before we started.

raised garden beds

And here they are all cleaned up.

costco rice and sugar

Two hours worth of garden clean up {with help from the kids} on a wonderfully sunny day was bartered for a 25 pound sack of sugar and a giant bag of rice.

Sounds like a pretty good trade to me.

I love gardening, and especially teaching young children about growing food. This is the 3rd spring in a row I’ve helped Girly Girl’s kids get their garden started, and I really have a good time while I’m over there. So it really doesn’t seem like to much work to me.

Do what you love, and everything will work itself out.

Peace Out Girl Scouts, I’m off to go pull some of my own weeds now.

~Mavis

The Backyard Homestead

Looking for a great gardening book? Check out The Backyard Homestead and learn how you can produce all the produce you need on only a quarter acre.

Mar 17

17 Comments

Bartering with Mavis – 26 Eggs for One Pound of Butter

mavis butterfield bartering

I stopped  by Mrs. Hillbilly’s house this afternoon with some of my excess eggs. I’ve been craving homemade cookies for the last few days but I was down to my last stick of butter and needed more.

costco kirkland butter

I ended up trading 26 fresh eggs for 1 pound of butter. Mrs. HB needed eggs, I needed butter. Having neighbors to barter with is really cool. It sure beats having to drive or walk to the store when you need just one item.

black lab

Oh, and Lucy the puggle dog also got a mini play date with her dog as well. What a bonus!

~Mavis

Feb 17

8 Comments

Bartering with Mavis – Francisco Cleans Out His Pantry

francisco mavis neighbor

Last night my neighbor Francisco sent me a text:

Francisco: We are purging our cabinets are you interested in some non vegan goodies?

Mavis: Should I come over right now?

Francisco: Give us 15 :) if you are free

Mavis: K will do

how to barter food

So I quickly ran to our the pantry and found some loot. Please take special notice the the frozen log of polenta. Mrs. Hillbilly traded me that last summer. The vinegar, razors, soap, cereal, soba noodles and sesame ginger rice were all free. I think I paid $.25 for the whole wheat pasta.

bartering with mavis

This is what Francisco had to barter with. It was a take all or nothing sort of thing since he was clearing his pantry of all non vegan products. So I didn’t inspect things {re: expiration dates} too closely and happily took everything he offered. The highlights of course where the Dove chocolates and the mini containers of olives, cookies and crackers he had received over the Christmas holiday in a gift basket from a client.

However if you look closely, you will totally notice the roasted red pepper soup. I gave that to him last fall and you can see it here in this video. Hilarious! What makes it even more funny is that Mrs. Hillbilly gave it to me. So mark my words, the next time I trade with Mrs. HB I’m going to try and barter back the soup. Ha!

tofu scrambler

I did pass on his box of tofu eggs  though {OH MY WORD- can you say gag me with a wooden spoon?}. Believe it or not, I do have my limits of what I will eat. Even it’s free.

francisco

Here is Francisco with his new, cleaned out, vegan friendly pantry. Clearly he is not a prepper. But that’s okay, if there is an emergency and he needs more than a 3 day supply of food, I’ve got him covered.

Peace Out Francisco, it was fun bartering with you.

~Mavis

The preppers pantry
The Prepper’s Pantry: Building and Thriving with Food Storage

Dec 8

21 Comments

Bartering with Mavis – Organic Deer for Dry Goods

About a month ago, Chino the Handyman went hunting with his brothers and bagged a deer. When I had asked him what he was going to do with all the meat, he offered to barter some of it with me when he picked it up from the butcher.

Yesterday, when I came home from running errands, Chino the Handy Man had dropped off a big bag of goodness on my porch. 17 pounds of free range, organic deer meat to be exact.

Here’s what was in the bag:

  • 3 Roasts {2-3 pounds each}
  • 4 packages of ground meat {1.5 pounds each}
  • 3 packages of deer chops {what are deer chops anyway?}
Hot diggety! 10 packages of meat. Wahoooo!

Chino made me work out the details with Girly Girl.  So I called her up, stood in my pantry, and started rambling off the things I thought she might like. Pasta, squash, canned pears, a 2 year old bottle of maraschino cherries, batteries, flour sack towels, cupcake liners, quinoa, a coupon for $25 off at Pottery Barn, Boboli pizza crusts and more.

I’m really happy with the deal because organic meat is my favorite thing to barter for.

What do you think? Who got the better deal?

Mavis, or Chino the Handyman?

Nov 19

Video – Bartering Babies?

I think they’re bartering, what do you think?

Nov 4

15 Comments

Bartering with Mavis – Free Beef

This morning I got a call from Mrs. Hillbilly.  She wanted to do some bartering.  Mrs. Hillbilly made her menu plan for the week and had discovered a few things missing from her pantry. On her wish list; diced tomatoes, onions, black beans, and pasta.

So of course I showed up with a few extras.  Annie’s Pasta {free from Vitacost} was a total no go, as was the boxed oatmeal.  She also turned down my canned water chestnuts.

So in the end, this is what was up for trade.

  • 1 bags Arrowhead Puffed Rice {free with coupons}
  • 4 boxes Barilla whole wheat grain pasta {free with coupons}
  • 1 box Wheat Chex {free with coupons}
  • 1 container of jalapenos {free with coupons}
  • 1 container Planter’s sunflowers {free with coupons}
  • 1 can black beans {cheap, I can’t remember how much I paid}
  • 1 gallon diced tomatoes {purchased from Costco 2 years ago}
  • 1 panty hose leg full of onions {scored a deal at Costco}

We decided to split the giant can of diced tomatoes.  Mrs. Hillbilly plans on making homemade tomato sauce with hers, and I’ve already decided to what I’ll be doing with mine {you’ll have to check back tomorrow to find out}.  So after we divided the tomatoes up, I tried to figure out what I wanted in exchange.

The only thing I knew I wanted for certain was ground beef.

After grabbing the beef from her freezer, Mrs. Hillbilly suggested I take a look in her “gift closet.”  At first she tried offering me some disgusting candles that only old ladies with gobs of perfume and big hair would like.  Seeing I was dissatisfied, she then reached for a Burt’s Bees Gift bag.

I almost wet my pants.

It was the same Burt’s Bee gift bag I had given to her last year for Christmas {the Mad Scientist had given it to me at her Hunukkah party only a few days prior to  me re-gifting it to Mrs. Hillbilly}.  I was laughing so hard I could barely get “Hey, I gave that to you last Christmas.” out of my mouth.  It was AWESOME!

Then I took a whiff of some nice smelling peach soap {another re-gift she was trying to pawn off on me}.

In the end, this is what I came home with:

  • 5 out of 8 Starbucks peppermint hot chocolate packets
  • 1 bottle Log Cabin syrup {sugar free, gag}
  • 2 cans of beans
  • 1 box of corn bread mix
  • 1 smelly peach soap
  • 1 frozen pouch of guacamole
  • 2 pounds of ground beef

So what do you think? Who got the better deal?  Mavis, or Mrs. Hillbilly?

Oct 23

51 Comments

Bartering with Mavis – 30 Pounds of FREE Chicken

A few weeks ago, my friend Ramona made some last minute plans to travel out of state to visit her relatives.  The only problem was, she had placed a large order of chicken.

The chicken was due to arrive when she was going to be out of town. So when Ramona offered to give me 20 pounds of her chicken in exchange for picking it up, trimming the fat, packaging the meat, and then storing it in my freezer until she go back into town, I was like… Seriously?

“Of course, I’ll help you out, because we all know Mavis would never say no to 20 pounds of FREE chicken.” 

But then a funny thing happened.  When I went to pick up the chicken, I wasn’t just picking up 1 large box of chicken, but apparently 2 boxes of chicken.  For a total of 80 POUNDS of CHICKEN.

Hole.Lee.Crap.  I had not planned on picking up, processing, and storing 80 pounds of chicken.  40 pounds yes, but 80?  What that right? So I quickly called Ramona to make sure Mr. Chicken Man had the order right.  I even made him triple check as he looked at me with a totally blank “C’mon lady, people are waiting in line, just take the freakin’ chicken” bewildered look on his face.

CRAAAAAP!

So to make a long story short.  I never want to process chicken again.  Maybe I should re-think this whole Pilgrim thing after all.

~Mavis

P.S.  Ramona totally upped the ante {and NO I didn’t ask her to} and gave me 30 pounds of chicken.  Which I think was VERY generous. Hmmm.  I think I came away with a good deal this time. What do YOU think?

This chicken came from Zaycon Foods.  If you would like find out when they will be in your area next, head on over HERE to check them out.

Oct 16

10 Comments

Video | Bartering with Mavis – Is Anybody Home?

Before I headed over to Francisco’s house the other day to barter, I stopped by my neighbor Mrs. Active Wear’s house.  Now the one thing you have to remember about living in high maintenance suburbia is, not everyone wants to barter with you {with or without the camera video present}.

My neighbor Mrs. Active Wear is pretty awesome.  I can call her at 6 am and ask her to drive my kids to school because I’m too lazy to get dressed, and she’s usually willing to bake 750 cupcakes with me any day of the week.  In exchange I let her borrow random crap and she spies on my kids for me whenever she sees them talking to someone new.

It’s what I would call a win-win relationship.

But I don’t think bartering is her thing.  LOL.

Oct 15

18 Comments

Video | Bartering with Mavis – Is it Hard to Barter with a Vegan?

My goal this week is not to spend a dime at the grocery store.  This of course means I’ll be doing a lot of bartering with my neighbors.

Last night I showed up on my neighbor Francisco’s doorstep and asked if he wanted to barter with me. Francisco is a vegan, so I wasn’t sure what I was going to go home with.

Looking for more of my super awesome videos?

You can see them all HERE.

Bartering Rules!

~Mavis

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The Art of Barter: How to Trade for Almost Anything ~ Amazon

Oct 10

31 Comments

Bartering with Mavis – Trading 25 Pounds of Whole Wheat Bread Flour for…

Yesterday I ran into Mrs. Hillbilly while I was running errands.

While we were talking, she mentioned she picked up an Oster 2lb bread maker* at the Goodwill for a whopping $25!  And the bread making booklet was in it too!  I could see she was totally pumped about it and I was super happy for her.

Well actually let me back up a second.  I’m not sure if I was super excited for her because she had just scored a sweet deal on a bread maker, or if I was totally surprised  to find out she shopped at the Goodwill too. Hmmm.

Well anyway, as soon as I heard the words bread maker come out of her mouth, I was instantly reminded of the 25 pound sack of flour I picked up for free awhile back when I cashed in some of my Swagbucks for an Amazon gift card.  Now as much as I would like to bake bread every day of the week, I just don’t have any extra time right now. So I immediately  told her about the flour and asked her she would be up for a little bartering a little later.

Well fast forward about 6 hours…

And this is what I traded away my 25 pound sack of whole wheat bread flour for:

  • 3 cups raw almonds {for snacking and a recipe I have in mind}
  • 1 red bell pepper {we used it last night on homemade pizzas}
  • 2 pounds mozzarella cheese {used some for the pizzas and still have plenty left over}
  • 1 tub of organic polenta

What the heck is polenta, and what am I suppose to do with it?

I could tell Mrs. Hillbilly totally wanted to get rid of the polenta so I just took it and smiled.  But seriously, what on earth is it?  Mrs. Hillbilly mentioned something like, “It’s like grits, only you fry it.”

Ummm Okay?

Help!

~Mavis

Read More Bartering Stories

If you like Polenta {and you know what to do with it} Amazon currently has Bob’s Red Mill Gluten Free Corn Grits, Polenta, 24 Ounce Packages {Pack of 4} on sale for $12.46/$3.11 each Shipped when you use the subscribe and save option at check out.

*Direct link to Amazon product

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