Barter For Survival During Hyperinflation
Warning: use of the information here may have legal ramifications unknown by the author. You must fact check everything yourself to make sure it is all legal where you live. The author assumes no responsibility for your actions.
Barter is simply the trading of goods directly for other goods. Cash poor, most kids discover barter very early, trading food they don't like or trading toys or baseball cards. When they grow up, they discover the convenience of government issued currency, and most give up barter altogether as adults.
In times of monetary crisis (hyperinflation), people rediscover barter, but remembering currency, they may join a barter club that has its own "scrip." Barter scrip is a special currency used within a barter network. If there isn't already a barter club near you by the time you need one, you can start your own.
Here's one way the barter club could work. The organizers of the club would accept certain items that people bring in and give them a special barter currency that could be spent withing the network. The amount given, however, would be a little bit less than the actual value and the difference would go to the club organizers (call it a bank if you want). The currency would have value, because it would be backed by the items brought in (which would be sold back to the market. You can think of it as getting store credit for what you bring in.
The items bought with previously unbacked currency would not actually belong to the club organizers but would simply be stored by them. The bank would only be allowed to spend what they have earned in fees. They could even buy the stored merchandise if they pleased.
People could also have accounts with the "bank." You would not necessarily need computers for this (paper records may be used), but they would become more useful and maybe even necessary as the network grew larger.
To prevent too much in the way of storage costs (and insurance liability) the members could be encouraged to buy back the items before the end of the day.
How To Create Your Own Scrip
To create your own scrip, cut up a bunch of dollar size pieces of paper and get a box of crayons. Draw whatever designs you like. Scan the image into your computer and then print as many copies as you need. You can also just use a computer by itself for the design. To make counterfeiting harder, all scrip could have an expiration date and new scrip designs could be introduced frequently.
Avoid Problems With The Law
Printing your own currency is illegal, but barter scrip ("trade dollars," which must be valued in U.S currency) is apparently allowed by the IRS and must be reported on your taxes as income . The information here is simply concerned with possibilities, not advice on what you should do or how you should do it. I don't know the legal difference between a currency and trade dollars. Don't blame me if you go go jail for printing your own currency. You will have to do your own research to make sure everything you are doing is legal. As far as I know, you must legally report all barter on your taxes.
Try Barter On A Small Scale First
Make yourself a "barter box" full of barter-able items and encourage your friends to do the same. Then, schedule an informal get-together. You can collectively decide how much the items are worth in "dollars." Then, knowing the relative values of everything, you are ready to trade.
Make Barter A Game
If you want to get a quick taste for barter, you can make a game of it. Get some old catalogs and cut out pictures of various items. The more the merrier. Randomly distribute them to your family and friends. Begin trading. You can trade directly or use your own hand drawn scrip. Monopoly money would also work.
A Few More Thoughts
When trading goods for goods, there is the problem of coincidence of needs. You might end up trading for things that you don't really want but you think you may be able to trade more easily later. That's when real money comes in to the picture.
By real money, I mean precious metals such as gold and silver. You can use gold and silver just like you would government printed currency. One ounce silver bullion rounds are easier to use for this purpose than gold because you can have more ounces of it (it's more divisible). To really take advantage of gold and silver, it would be nice to have a bank that stores it for you and allows you to trade bank notes representing fractional amounts (as was done in the olden days).