Funny situation. We often talk with a guy who owns a pizza business. He drinks at a brewery and we occasionally see him there on Friday nights. We like his pizza and order one maybe twice a month.
So, last Friday I mentioned that we are selling one of our lawn mowers, a Cub Cadet that we got “for free” (long story) a couple years ago. He asked the specs and we discussed it. I happened to have pics on my phone, as I was working on an ad.
He is very interested in buying it. He asked our asking price and he thought it was reasonable. He then mentioned that if we wanted to barter for pizza, he would up the purchase price by 20 percent. The idea is goofy enough that we are considering it.
Pros: Pizza and the quirkiness of the situation.
Cons: I’d still be tipping the delivery guy (we have the pie delivered to the brewery). It will take a long time to go through $1,200 worth of pizza. In all likelihood, he or I will die before the deal is complete.
Let’s say a pizza is $20. Twice a month is $480 a year. So it would only take 2.5 years before your account ran out. Even if I’m out by a factor of 2, that’s 5 years.
On the other hand, I would assume he is offering you this deal as he doesn’t have the readies on hand to pay for it right now. I wouldn’t be that confident in a business still being around in 5 years if the owner doesn’t have $1,200 to spare.
Plus, time value of money. All in all, I don’t think it’s a good deal, but if you consider him a friend and want to do him a favour, it’s not terrible. Just don’t be too upset if he goes out of business in 6 months and you’ve only ordered 2 pizzas in that time. If you can’t deal with that possibility (and the possibility of falling out with him), don’t do it.
The problem is keeping track of how much of the pizza credit you’ve used. My wife “sold” our minivan in exchange for credit with her masseuse. I’m not sure she kept very good track of how much credit she had left; any time I ask she gets testy.
The pizza we always get is a specialty pie that costs $18. I tip the delivery guy a five.
His business is solid. Asking price for the mower was $1,000; he would have been happy paying that amount in cash, but offered $1,200 in pizza to make things interesting. The CubCadet cost us nothing, so we will be happy regardless.
I’ve been texting with my gf this afternoon. She wants to do the deal just because of the zaniness, so it looks like we will be moving forward.
4 years from now when the barter is long forgotten, it would be pretty easy for the pizza parlour owner to say something like “aww that old debt, I thought we cleared that up years ago?” I’m incredibly careful with money owed and owing, but I know a lot of people aren’t.
The only pizza parlour owner I know (anecdata) would do exactly the scenario above. I would expect to get about 25% of the goods agreed upon.
This dude is a cool guy. If I call his shop when he is at the brewery sitting with us, he will try to get on the phone and tell the order-taker to comp us the pizza, but we do not let him do that. We’re friends. In fact, the Fridays we do not order pizza are Fridays when the brewery hosts a food truck. We all order food truck food to support the brewery (including Mr Pizza).
I think the key in all of this is that everyone involved are friends.
OP gets pizza; pizza-man has an excuse to give it to him for free. (This is the guy who routinely tries to give OP pizza anyway.) Pizza-man gets a lawn tractor he (presumably) needs and OP doesn’t. And a lawn tractor gets a loving forever home. (I hope.)
Win-win-win.
Screw scorekeeping. This is friends doing solids for friends.
Year ago when I was an optician my boss was bartering eyeglasses for beer with the owner of a local liquor store. He’d go pick up a twelve pack, get an invoice for the beer and credit that against the liquor store owner’s bill. Both of them kept records (I doubt that either of them fully trusted the other enough to take the other’s word when for they were even).
Alas Kayaker, I think that you are a very, very lucky man indeed. I would certainly go for it. At the very least, it shouldn’t be too difficult to create a quick and dirty tracking spreadsheet to track the account etc.
I think it’s more likely there’s a difference in costs. A customer pays eighteen dollars for a pizza. But obviously the pizza maker is not putting eighteen dollars worth of ingredients into that pizza. Let’s say the pizza contains six dollars’ worth of ingredients and the other twelve dollars represents the pizza maker’s time, skills, overhead, and profit. So the $1200 worth of pizzas he’s offering for the lawn mower actually represents $400 coming out of his pocket.
Being as the OP is already buying these pizzas on a regular basis, he apparently feels they are worth eighteen dollars. He’s getting $1200 worth of pizzas for a lawn mower he was selling at $1000. So I’d say it was a good deal for both sides.
I wouldn’t do it. People, even Friendly Pizza Guys at the bar, quickly forget the terms of years-old deals they’ve made and begin to resent the weekly ‘free’ pizzas for years. Imagine the tractor breaking down six months into the trade, too.
I think money deals between friends get weird. Give him the lawnmower, if you want to, with no expectations. Let him comp you however much he thinks it is worth over time. Expect nothing so you don’t get pissed and lose the friendship. I’d rather have the friend than the lawnmower.
