I guess one way that people save money is that instead of exchanging money for goods or services they simply trade the party something of equal value instead. Just recently I was reading an ad about someone wanting to trade some Starbucks coffee for a bus pass which I thought was extremely different.
What makes it odd to me is that a bus pass here costs about $74 for a 1 zone travel and so I was just thinking how the person must have a lot of coffee to match the value of it. I can’t say that I barter too much as most of the time if I am not doing something for money then it is usually like donation. It’s just that ironically the other side would want to try and do something good in return.
Although, if I ever do want to practice my bartering skills those night markets are usually the best way to do it I’d say. You should see how persistent some people are in terms of either driving the price down or trying to sell the merchant into trading items with them.