LETS, Timebanks and other means of exchange

Posted by

1

Dollars, Euros, Pounds, … Have you ever heard of Time Dollars?

Traditional currencies all attribute value to the goods and services we produce. In our capitalist economies, the wealth we accumulate through our lives is directly related to whatever ‘value’ these ‘units’ possess at the point in time that we need them.

Our societies, as a result, tend to place value on some products and services, while undervaluing others. For example, an hour of lawyer’s advice is worth $300, while getting a shampoo and haircut is only worth $30. Buying a gold ring might be similarly expensive, but buying a silver one might be cheaper.

I’ve just been watching a TV program that introduces an alternative ways to trade, including LETS, and Timebanking.

Time Dollars are also a simple form of spending and creating worth:

For every hour you spend doing something for someone in your community, you earn one Time Dollar. Then you have a Time Dollar to spend on having someone do something for you. It’s that simple.

You can watch this video that introduces some of the concepts. The inline video is screwing up my theme. I don’t know why.

LETS is a Local Exchange Trading System that allows people to trade directly or indirectly. When a volunteer provides a service, they will accrue a credit that is recorded in a central location. This can then be spent by them to purchase another good or service. Timebanks are a similar way that allow people to accrue and spend time dollars.

The OpenMoney Website has a wonderful description of the nature of money vs. ‘openmoney’.

We believe that the problems that come from conventional money can be resolved with open money systems.

 

  • where conventional money is scarce and expensive, the new money is sufficient and free.
  • where conventional money is created by central banks, new money is issued by us, as promises to redeem – our money is our word.
  • and where conventional money flows erratically in and out of our communities, creating dependencies that are harmful to the economy, society and nature, the new complementary money re-circulates, enabling business and trade.

Many of us use forms of ‘informal’ money already, such as bonus points on our credit, airmiles, etc.. We are already ‘open’ to the idea that money need not be green (or substitute whatever color your national currency is), nor printed on paper or metal, nor created and allocated to us by others (through pricing, labor, or whatever).

Have you ever used a time bank or similar scheme? Are you currently a member? If not, check out the TimeBanks.org website for lots more information. Cash isn’t the only form of money that we can have.

Share with us some of your own ideas about barter, LETS, Timebanks and so on… What other schemes do you know about?

Buzz: Demerath Law – Nice Design But Get a Privacy Policy

Posted by

lawyer

These days, everyone has a website, and so do lawyers. Demerath Law, which specializes as a Nebraska Personal Injury Attorney, is the website of one such law firm which focuses on accidents, including workplace and recreation accidents. The principal lawyer at the firm is Larry Demerath himself.

It’s actually a very nicely designed website with lots of links at the top, right and bottom making navigation easy wherever you are. The overall feel of the website is a little dark, with the overtones of gray and black making it seem perhaps a little depressing. There are useful FAQs, news and resource links as well as helpful forms (you can see a mini-form in the image) and a larger form under “Get a Lawyer”. Both of these forms should elicit a lot of submissions. The presence of a phone number is also reassuring.

The lack of an email address, though, is an oversight as many people would just like to click and open their email. They may even wish to add attachments, such as PDFs in their initial brief. Another surprising omission is a Privacy Policy at the bottom. On such a sensitive website as this, this really needs remedied as quickly as possible. A search of the site map produced nothing on this at all. Perhaps the client-attorney privilege is obvious, but sometimes the obvious needs stating!

Overall, this website is responsive, thoughtfully designed, and attractively laid out. It should really complement the company well, and attract a lot of interest from clients, potential clients, and others seeking to do business with them.

Coupon Codes + Coupon Websites = Money In Your Pocket?

Posted by

6

If you are a regular customer of many larger consumer product companies, like Coca Cola, Walmart, etc., you may be lucky enough to be able to get a coupon when you purchase an item from them. Typically, coupons would be found in newspapers, magazines and the products themselves. Occasionally, you’d find sheets of coupons distributed in various ways.

Recently, though, coupons came to the Internet. For many products, you can search for coupons that can save lots of cash on up front purchases. Such coupons can either be used directly on companies shopping websites, or printed out and used at stores.

When I started out hosting my websites on Dreamhost, I didn’t know about such things! Apparently, there are lots of coupon codes for such companies. Search through this blog to find several such coupon companies, and see the list of companies that offer coupons.

If you are disciplined, you could use deduct difference between the regular price and the price with a coupon and put that in an interest bearing account. Not only would you save money on your purchases, but you’d actually earn a decent return on the money saved. Of course, this would work best on items that are regularly purchased.

For example, you get a 10% reduction on CouponChief’s website for books purchased from Barnes & Noble priced at $85.99. You get $8.56 savings which you put in the bank or building society account. While you won’t get top rates of return, you will still see 3%-4% returns on your income. Do that 20-30 times a year, and the amounts will add up.

But it isn’t the only way to make money with coupons. Occasionally, some sites will allow customers to create their own coupons and then give them away. One good example is Dreamhost which will allow you to earn money from referrals and has a coupon scheme, too.

The traditional referral scheme allows you to make a percentage of any sale for a customer whom you refer. But Dreamhost goes one step further. You can actually create your own Coupon Codes. I made several today: Blogger2yr and Blogger1YR

For example, Blogger2y coupon code will allow a new customer to purchase a plan and get $60 off if s/he pays for two years at once. This represents quite a saving: upto a maximum of about 46% (if my math is correct on the smallest plan!). That’s quite a saving over the 1 year payment for the customer.

Since the promo codes are offering upto a maximum of $97 per discount, that’d mean any customer who uses that discount would get a great deal BUT $37 would still go to the referrer!

I’ve found a few websites that are happy to take information about new coupon codes, too. So once you have created your coupon code, you can visit these websites and add your new code information there.

  1. Redeem Coupon at http://www.redeemcoupon.com/ this website works very much like Digg.com. It was easy to get listed there.
  2. http://www.couponshock.com/ is focused much more on hosting and domains. I submitted my listing but it hadn’t shown up by the time of this posting.
  3. http://www.retailmenot.com/ is also a coupon site that offers a wide range of coupons, worth checking out, and worth submitting too.

So, look around for a coupon site to save a few bucks or use a coupon making facility at one of your favorite stores (such as …) to make a few bucks that way. Either way is good! Both are better!

Disclaimer: I am a customer of Dreamhost, and this email contains affiliate links.