We use an unusual method to pay for things and it’s saved us over £8,000 – anyone can do it

PICKING up the family car at her local garage, Katie Atkinson, 32, begins to pay for her two new tyres – but not in the way you might expect.

Instead of breaking out a credit or debit card for the £160 invoice, she plonks down two boxes of fruit and vegetables she’s grown in her allotment.

Then, she adds a handwritten note confirming her fiancé will paint the small office at the back of the garage workshop and put up a new shelf later that evening.

No money is changing hands, but former decorator Katie, who lives with her painter fiancé Michael, 38, and their eleven-year-old son Bobby in Hartlepool, still gets what she needs.

“I use barter banking to keep my family debt-free. It basically means we swap skills for bills, and doing so has helped us save more than £3000 this year,” Katie told The Sun. 

“I’ve swapped or ‘barter banked’ veggies for repairs, swapped DIY skills for new kitchen appliances and even offered up toys in exchange for new carpets and a pack of eggs for a haircut.

“It’s not complicated – anyone can do it.”

“It’s how we have saved almost £8,000 towards a house deposit and to fund a family holiday in the last 12 months,” Katie said.

On top of barter banking, the family have switched to only using cash, which they feel helps them budget much better than using a card.

Using homegrown veg as currency

In 2021, Katie and Michael began renting a 500 square foot allotment from their local council as part of their plan to save money.

They’re not the only people doing this – recent Greenpeace figures show allotment waiting lists around Britain are up by 81% in the last decade.

Katie pays £103 a year for her allotment and with her family she’s spent hundreds of hours planting, harvesting and growing produce, which they eat themselves or use as currency.

“We grow all our fruit and vegetables, from strawberries, lettuce, pumpkin,cauliflower and carrots as well as cabbage, and we have a greenhouse for seedlings and chickens for eggs,” Katie said.

“In three years, we have become self-sufficient at supplying fruit and veg. It’s cut our grocery bill by around £4,000.”

The mum-of-one says her allotment use was how she began “barter banking”.

“We started by swapping excess fruit and veg or eggs we had for vegetables we had not grown but needed with other allotment growers,” she said.

They then realised they had other skills they could use as a way of paying for things.

With Micheal being a painter and builder and Katie having decorating and gardening skills, they could offer a range of services in exchange for goods and services.

“When we’ve needed haircuts, it saved us £40 because we swapped fruit, veggies and eggs for the trims and put that £40 into her savings account instead,” Katie said.

Her family’s unique money-saving method is spreading around the uK.

On social media platform TikTok, #bartering has a staggering 153.2million video views. 

Plus, Google searches for “bartering” increased 50% in April 2020 compared to the same period in 2019.

The phrase “food swap” jumped 53% and “swap clothes online” soared 100 per cent, according to data provider SEMrush.

‘We never use debit or credit cards’

Another way Katie saves money is by only paying for things with cash, if she has to use money.

“My parents and grandparents taught me the value of only spending what you had in your hand,” she said.

“It’s why so many people spend all their pay packet in the first two days and have no money left for the rest of the month.”

Katie and her fiance decided to put away their credit and debit cards during lockdown as a way of cutting costs and instead use cash for weekly purchases.

Each week, Katie splits her cash up into envelopes for groceries, fuel, treats and basic purchases.

“So-called ‘cash reverting’ makes the decision to spend so much simpler – if you don’t have the cash in your wallet, you don’t buy it,” she said.

“It makes you think twice about a purchase. It also means you know you can afford what you’re buying and makes you plan ahead and budget more effectively.

“At the start of each month, we save £200 from our pay and then take out the ‘cash we have budgeted’ for weekly shop purchases once the monthly gas and electric, rent, water and council tax is paid.  We have £500 in cash to play with so our savings remain intact.”

Savvy Katie is also a “Car Boot Queen”, pulling in between £200 to £800 every couple of weeks selling old toys, clothes, clutter collected over winter and excess allotment fruit and vegetables.

“Every summer, we try to get a stall once a fortnight at a local car boot. It costs £15 for a selling spot and our policy is to never go home with anything we bought to sell,” she said.

“We ask friends and family if they have clutter, they need to get rid and they give us boxes they would have taken to the dump, and we sell what we can.”