Buying Time

For the past 14 years, Jan Innes has been receiving regular home-cooked meals every Sunday without paying a single cent.

This exchange is just one pocket of the intricately entangled network of the Time Trade Circle, a Cambridge-based time bank that serves the Boston metropolitan area. The principle is straightforward: you complete a task for someone, and the number of hours it took to complete the task is deposited into your account. You can then “cash in” those hours whenever you want.

Innes, who is disabled, has difficulty cooking for herself, and through the Time Trade Circle,, she found a couple that loved to cook, but needed help with data entry and analysis. Though Innes couldn’t help in that area, there were other people in Boston and Cambridge who could pay it forward.

Innes has been a member of the Time Trade Circle for 16 years and has completed 752 exchanges. In another memorable trade, Innes — a seamstress— crafted a pair of soft street shoes for a young man with foot pain.

“Eventually, we created a pair that was not the most fashionable,” she wrote in an email. “But they served his purpose well for some length of time, enabling him to walk occasionally on sidewalks which gave him access to stores and businesses.”

The Time Trade Circle was founded by Katherine Ellin, a Cambridge-based therapist, who was looking for a way for single women to find babysitting and other home services. In the middle of the Great Recession, her organization began gaining traction. Homes were empty, unemployment was high, and for many people, the only thing in abundance was time.

Later, Ellin’s program transformed. It became a way for all people to exchange services, receive the help that they needed, and build a community within Cambridge.

Time banking services can be used for almost anything: transportation, resume editing, computer help, handyman services, massages, and more. The first time Cindy Wentz, a board member of the Cambridge Time Trade Circle, used a time banking service was when she set up her home computer. In exchange, she helped out at a potluck dinner, and her immersion into the time banking world began.

It’s not a perfect system. Hour-based trading can sometimes lead to misunderstandings. Wentz recounts a time when someone exchanged hours for a wedding dress alteration, which did not go as planned. “The person didn’t really have the skills to do it,” she recalls. But such instances are rare and settled quickly; Time Trade Circle gave the hours back, and the new member stopped trading her sewing skills.

“There’s an infinite number of hours,” Wentz says. “So, in a way, we can do whatever we want.”

Through the time banking model, people can receive the help they need without the pressure of providing money. Though this model solicits skepticism from some, the truth is, this kind of communal sharing isn’t new. Several cultures operate on “gift economies” which rely on the transfer of goods and services without any implicit value-for-value exchange. Similarly, time banking offers an alternative to capitalist trade.

Jessica Tanner, a member of the Valley Time Bank in Western Massachusetts, mentions that she sought out time banking to find support and meet new people when she first moved to Massachusetts.

“Every time I get together with a fellow time bank member, I always find out about some other service that I’ve never heard of before. You’re not only meeting this person for a service, but you’re also becoming friends with them,” she says. “Over time, you’re learning about a lot of different things in your community.”

During the pandemic, however, people weren’t able to see their neighbors, let alone exchange services with them. Many individuals who relied heavily on time banking have seen their interest in the program wane. While the Cambridge Time Trade Circle was originally composed of a nine-person board, the bank now operates with three board members, including Wentz.

Moreover, the ever-changing Cambridge population make it even harder to retain members. “Cambridge is a transient place,” Wentz says. “There are a lot of rentals, so people aren’t staying where they are.”

According to Tanner, who helps operate Western Massachusetts time banks, there are around 150 members each in the Northampton, Amherst, and Greenfield time banks, and about 1,200 throughout the entire region.

She has also seen dwindling membership in these time banks.“One of the members said, ‘Well, I think the timing serves its purpose, it built community, brought people together, connected people, and then they didn’t really need the organization anymore,’” Tanner says. “If it’s effective, it kind of puts itself out of business.”

Time banks also face challenges from the rise of gig economy competitors like Taskrabbit and Uber, according to Tawanna Dillahunt, a former Radcliffe Research Fellow and current fellow at MIT.

Dillahunt surveyed members of time banks and found that 40 percent of respondents felt that the gig economy was competing with the existing time bank. If individuals can get their services from a hired individual with more efficiency and certainty, they’re unlikely to turn to members of their own community, she explains. Apps like Nextdoor promise the same sort of sharing interface, without any physical contact.

Even so, Dillahunt is wary of these competitors. “I am concerned about the gig economy because there is less focus on community-building,” she wrote in an email. “Time bank exchanges created opportunities for connection in ways that we don’t see in many digital platforms today.” Gig jobs are also criticized by some as being unfair to its workers, with accusations of low pay and poor working conditions.

And despite the competition, time banking remains a crucial part of daily life for some people, particularly among elderly residents, disabled people, and mothers of children with special needs.

“Time Trade has made it possible for me to get rides to medical appointments, especially in Boston,” Innes wrote in an email. “And there are the cooks who save me so much energy that could be better used elsewhere.”

The Time Trade Circle also has a fund of hours that can be donated to people who need emergency assistance, which has benefited many people during periods of crisis, Innes added.

Tanner and Wentz praise the shared bonds time banks have created — and are hopeful the model will stand the test of time..

“If people are willing to put the energy into it I think it’ll keep going,” Wentz says. “I hope the world doesn’t change so much that there’s no longer a place for it.”