Let’s Trade.

I’m building a space that values relationships over money.

Relationships are essential to creating a place I want to live in, that we all can thrive within. The quality of our relationships with place, people, and objects determines how well we live. Buy-it-for-life (#BIFL) is one type of relationship that asks us to consider why we are buying something, and what it means.

Bartering and exchanging services is another type of business relationship that asks us to consider what we mean to each other. Negotiating to develop an exchange on fair terms, agreed to willingly, with whatever each party feels holds value to them, tangibly. Not an abstract marketplace. This is the soul of a sustainable and balanced world.

Barter and pay-it-forward are one way I contribute to that reality, how I push forward to a place and space I can happily call home. When a pot changes hands for a skill someone brings, we’re deciding together what’s fair. Two people, working it out together. As it should be.

This is the kind of economy I want to help build, one exchange at a time. A neighbourhood. People who show up for each other, fairly, on their own terms. If enough of us do business this way, barter for skill – pottery for care in my case – we start to create a world connected in healthy and sustainable ways. That’s the home I’m working toward.