Budget bartering question

How much bartering can be done without charging the budget?

For example, let's say some guy down the street is working on a similar project to your challenge project. You hear about his project, and go introduce yourself. After gabbing, you learn that he's got a pile of parts you want, and is willing to trade.

You help him rebuild his motor in trade for his pile of parts. He's thrilled because he's clueless on engines, and doesn't have to pay a machine shop. He gives you the whole pile of parts in thanks for your efforts.

A deal he would have done with anyone, you just happened to be the one to ask. (Not a special relationship).

Part of me says its just more labor you are essentially putting into your Challenger, in trade for parts.

Opinions?

FMV? Free? Other?

IMHO labor is free, trade is allowed, parts were available to anyone who offered the labor, makes them free for mine

I would hope free. Did some work that netted parts I am hoping to use for my build.

Id say labor has to be counted for something if it isn't specifically on your challenge car. I think your way to work the "Challenge Math" here is cash valuing your repair work for the parts lot and selling off enough to make it free. So, if you agree with me, give us details on what you did for the guy and let us put a value on your labor.

For me, it was fixing a stereo install. 30 minutes of labor doing some in dash soldering. Told him that I would gladly take the steering wheel setup that he had in exchange for the labor (he had agreed to pay me $40, and then told me that he had no cash when I was done). Got a quick release and wheel.

I would like to know how this plays out because I've got more barter and trade in my challenge project than cash at this piont

Trading accounted-for parts for other parts = Free
Trading labor for labor = Free
Trading your labor for parts = FMV added to budget
Trading your accounted-for parts for labor = Recoup budget

Bryce

I have to agree, as much as I'd love to be able to "work off" parts labor is only free when its your labor on your car.

Otherwise we could just extend the scenario to say I traded my labor for a paycheck which I traded for parts so the parts are free.

Labor done in exchange for goods needs to count toward the buget :(

yeah, i'd have to agree with assigning them FMV. however, being that they were pretty much junk parts to the PO of them, you can probably make a pretty good case for them being closer to garage sale prices rather than what they'd have been once someone went to the trouble of listing them on craigslist or ebay. basically, the lower end of FMV. that seems pretty fair to me.

Or reasonable labor rates used as parts cost. I'd probably stretch it and use whichever is less, FMV or labor rate.

I've nothing to add other than every time I see this topic I think it says, "Budget bartending question."

Hmmm...

OK, let me offer a few more details.

My Challenger is a classic, but its only a shell. Parts are expensive, because it's a classic.

I don't need a lot of parts, because most of my drivetrain, suspension, etc. will be fabbed or modded from another car.

However, I'd love to have some of the bits- trim pieces, interior, glass, gauges, etc.

So, I made an offer on a deal that was 2 almost complete cars (in addition to the 1 I've got). I could have fit BOTH parts cars into my budget, and sold enough to recoup most of the cost. Seller agreed.

Before I picked it up, he sold to someone else. Just a logistics thing and a misunderstanding.

But the buyer has been in contact with me. He's in support of the whole Challenge thing.

He's not too much into bodywork, and I don't mind it. He's willing to give me all the spare parts, if I'll do his bodywork. So, his 2 cars will come through my shop, I'll do bodywork on 1, and all the spare parts will be left behind.

For what it's worth, I'm no pro bodyman, and I don't have a pro shop. Just my backyard.

I could easily SELL parts from the pile that I don't need to recoup the FMV value of the parts I do, but that really seems a bit silly. It is truly a labor investment FOR the challenge car, not trying to find loopholes.

But I'm not doing the guy's bodywork for free if I can't use the parts on my Challenger.

The obvious loophole is to make him a member of my team...

SVreX wrote: I could easily SELL parts from the pile that I don't need to recoup the FMV value of the parts I do, but that really seems a bit silly.

Tell me about it. I had to explain to Jessica why I needed to buy a second Fiero when I already had one sitting in the driveway. Fortunately, if it's easy to sell parts from the pile and you're building for the challenge, sounds like it'll be easy to follow the rules.

But I'm not doing the guy's bodywork for free if I can't use the parts on my Challenger. The obvious loophole is to make him a member of my team...

You're totally contradicting yourself here, if you're looking for somebody to agree labor can trade for parts. You clearly value your time as money if you're not willing to do the work for free and the guy would want money for his parts if you weren't doing work for him. Parts = money. If I convince my employer to pay me in turbochargers instead of US dollars, that wouldn't make turbochargers free in my challenge budget. It would, however, make for an interesting paycheck if I only had enough pay coming for 3/4 of a turbo.

Making him a member of your team still wouldn't make parts free. The parts would then be valued at FMV, which is what he just paid for them when he bought them from out from under you.

Bryce

I didn't say I didn't value my time as money. I see no contradiction.

Everyone values their time as money, and in fact, time is the one free currency of the Challenge. That's kind of the whole point. You can pay someone to get it done, or you can put your own time into it, regardless of how much time that is, with complete disregard for it's value.

Some people can build a roll cage in a day. It takes me more like 2 weeks. It doesn't change the value of it one bit. But the Challenge essentially says, "You may put a completely unlimited quantity of your own time into this project with no charge whatsoever to your budget. If you spend a dollar in currency, it's supposed to be counted".

I am merely suggesting that in the interest of getting my Challenge car completed, I am willing to put in an awful lot of time both directly and indirectly.

I can spend 10 minutes ordering something from Summit online, or I can spend months scouring junkyards for a similar part with no charge to the budget. I spend a lot of time learning about cars I am not familiar with. No charge. I spend a lot of time learning to weld. No Charge. I could earn $100 in a couple of hours and give it to someone who welds better than me to do a job and charge the budget $100, or I can invest 50 hours between the learning curve and the execution time to do the same thing myself and charge the budget zero.

There's LOTS of time that goes into a Challenge car that is not spent working on the car directly in the interest of saving a few bucks.

I'm not saying my time has no value. I'm saying exactly the opposite- that the value of my time is offset by the fact that I did it myself and therefore has great value, but no cost in Challenge terms. That's the way the Challenge works.

SVreX wrote: ... the value of my time is offset by the fact that I did it myself and therefore has great value, but no cost in Challenge terms. That's the way the Challenge works.

That's the way the challenge works when speaking in regards to putting labor into your challenge car. Where you're losing me (and it sounds like I'm not alone) is when you're trying to exchange your time for somebody else's parts. To be clear, do you agree or disagree with this:

Nashco wrote: Trading accounted-for parts for other parts = Free Trading labor for labor = Free Trading your labor for parts = FMV added to budget Trading your accounted-for parts for labor = Recoup budget

Bryce

I asked for input, and therefore it doesn't really matter whether I agree with it or not. You gave me input.

I would, however, say that if trading labor for parts is out of bounds, then trading labor for labor is most certainly as well.

Otherwise, the fact that I'm a carpenter would most certainly come in handy if my local machinist needed a little work done on his house.

I'm also completely not following you on trading accounted-for parts for labor= recoup budget. There's only 2 types of labor- you or you team's labor (free) or professional labor (paid). Are you suggesting that I could take an accounted-for part, trade it to a machinist for his time, but would then have to count it within the recoup limit? Huh?

So, to be clear, I disagree. I can't agree with all 4 points of your statement. However, I am not Per, nor GRM staff, so my opinion does not matter.

But on the point I asked, you voiced your opinion, and I appreciate it.

So, the only thing I see in this thread is more unanswered questions.

some people say that if you get 3 geologists in a room and ask them a question, you'll get 4 answers. apparently the same is true of GRMers

Honestly, I think bartering is very much left out of the rules. It's completely unclear.

The word barter is not in there, and the word trade is only in the recoup rule (which makes me understand Bryce's above interpretation)

But the recoup rule says both:

Parts that are not used may be traded or sold up to the initial cost of the car or parts deal.

and:

... trading is not allowed.

Which, of course, makes no sense. A trade is by nature devoid of cash value. So, by the first half of the rule I guess we are supposed to assign a value to a trade so we know we don't go over the recoup amount, but by the second half of the rule trades are not allowed.

I pretty certain trades have been quite open territory in the past. Has anyone been assigning cash value to trades? What determines the value, the FMV of the part I am trading, or the FMV of the goods or service I am receiving? If I get my local machinist to rebuild my motor in trade for a bent bumper I am not going to use how would I value that? Is it a $800 rebuild, or a $10 scrap bumper?

Which is why I asked the question.

Any official clarification?

paul, you've left out a very important part of the rule in your above snips. here's how it reads in its entirety:

Challenge budget rule 3 states: 3.Parts that are not used may be traded or sold up to the initial cost of the car or parts deal. In other words, if you buy a $500 Challenge car, you can recoup up to $500 of your budget by selling parts. (If you do turn a profit on selling parts off the car, we suggest you take your significant other out to dinner to compensate them for having a $2010 car hanging around the house.). Once the recuperation limit has been reached on a car or parts deals, trading is not allowed.

my bold added. and that's why i never sell something down to zero.

to your initial question, i believe per told me many years ago that labor-for-parts was a no-no. the obvious loophole here is when your labor is picking up a load of scrap from someone who needs their garage cleaned.

labor-for-labor is 100% OK as long as it's not taking place in a for-profit place of business.

oh, if you plan to make him a team member to get free labor from him, don't do it until after you clean up the scrap from his garage and keep the parts you want out of that scrap pile. otherwise, you have to FMV the parts.

also, regarding trading a challenge part for a non-challenge part that you already own: i've been into corvairs for about 30 years, and used to have a good stash of parts. when i built my '02 challenge car, i had parts from my challenge car that i wasn't using for the challenge (four-speed non-posi transaxle), and i had stash parts that i wanted to use on the challenge car (clutch and pressure plate, iirc). FMV of clutch and pressure plate was approximately equal to the FMV of the four-speed non-posi transaxle, so i posted on the board and Per agreed that this was a legitimate way to value a parts trade. key reason for asking is that trades are NOT counted against recoup.

Patrick, you never cease to amaze me.

So what you are saying is that you interpret:

"Once the recuperation limit has been reached on a car or parts deals, trading is not allowed."

To mean:

"After the moment you have hit the recoup limit you may no longer trade"

As opposed to :

"After you have spent the entire amount of the recoup limit, you can not trade for further parts"

So, it is about time, not about dollars? You are a truly evil man.

THAT will certainly screw with a lot of people's minds!

SVreX wrote: Patrick, you never cease to amaze me. So what you are saying is that you interpret: "Once the recuperation limit has been reached on a car or parts deals, trading is not allowed." To mean: "After the moment you have hit the recoup limit you may no longer trade" As opposed to : "After you have spent the entire amount of the recoup limit, you can not trade for further parts" So, it is about time, not about dollars? You are a truly evil man. THAT will certainly screw with a lot of people's minds!

Paul, i appreciate the compliments, but i don't think my interpretation is any sort of stretch at all. it's about time and money simultaneously. the time for trading is before the recoup limit is reached for the deal which got you the part you're trading away. let's not spend too many electrons discussing this, as i fear attention will bring change.