Barter involving a caravan, motor-bike and a builder

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This is another ‘discussion’ about a time we used bartering to get something we needed. Bartering is a great way of doing business in my opinion. We have bartered quite a few times and it saves having to find cash for whatever it is we need. Probably the most complicated transaction we were involved in happened when we’d been married about six years. We were living on a 5-acre farmlet in a half-finished house. Half-finished in the sense that what would one day be the dining room was our bedroom and our two boys slept in a wide passageway. We wanted to put two bedrooms at the end of the passageway and an L-shaped lounge on past the dining room. Because we were so short of room we had bought a big, old caravan with the idea of sleeping in it but that didn’t really work. Until we sold it we couldn’t afford the building although we had got quotes for the work. The builder was keen to do the job. He knew a young lad who was desperate to move out into some sort of accommodation with his girlfriend. The young lad had no money but he did have a very fancy, expensive motor-bike. In the end we kept the motor-bike as security until the young lad had paid off the caravan. The money from the caravan paid the builder. Perhaps we were lucky but it worked like a charm. The photo shows our two boys in a paddock full of (Australian) dandelions or capeweed.