Exchange system

When I was in my country, we used to buy things by exchanging them with something else: clothes, furniture, etc.....it was really a helpful system for a lot of people. Nowadays this system no longer exists in my country, now it is all about money. But this week I managed to pay something I could not afford by using this system and I gave the person something else that he really needed, that way we are both happy and neither of us had to use money.