Category Archives: money

Paper Money Currency – Urstromtaler, Cheers Or Plenty – Take Your Pick

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One meaning of currency is general acceptance or use.  Plastic is taking a bit of a beating recently so perhaps it is better to go back to paper.  Bank notes are of course generally accepted for what they are worth. If you are into bank note collecting, you may even be willing to pay more for attractive world paper money or rare United States currency.  What about something printed up by your neighbour?

Well apparently communities are now printing their own currency in order to keep cash flowing.  It’s a Depression-era idea that aims to help consumers make ends meet and support struggling local businesses.

paper money currency

It works like this: Businesses and individuals form a network to print currency. Shoppers buy it at a discount — say, 95 cents for $1 value — and spend the full value at local stores that accept the currency.  Here are some of these paper money currencies you may be aware of in the USA:

The BerkShares system started in 2006 and is the largest of its kind in the country with $2.3 million worth of BerkShares in circulation.

There are an estimated 75 local currency systems that have sprung up recently in the U.S., according to Michael Shuman, author of “The Small-Mart Revolution: How Local Businesses Are Beating the Global Competition”

Such paper money currencies are not found only in the USA.  In England you have the Lewes Pound.  Again it is a complementary currency, redeemable for goods or services with local traders. It is certainly not intended to replace sterling, but it raises awareness of the importance of shopping locally.  It can be bought or redeemed for sterling at any of the issuing points in Lewes, which is located in East Sussex.

In Magdeburg, Germany, they are also very proud of their local currency.  It is called the Urstromtaler and is used alongside the normal currency, which is the euro. Even two years ago there were more than 200 businesses using the regional currency, including shops, bakeries, florists, restaurants. There was even a cinema that accepted Urstromtaler.

Of course the grand-daddy of them all is to be found in Switzerland.  It’s the WIR, now over 75 years old.  For an explanation in English, you can check out the WIR Economic Circle Cooperative. It notes that the WIR is a successful Swiss local currency for business to business transactions based on mutual credit:

The WIR credit clearing association, now called the WIR Bank, also provides conventional banking services. WIR is an important case for monetary reformers and free exchange advocates to study. While there may yet be some deficiencies in its operating policies, WIR has proven over a long period of time the effectiveness of direct clearing of credits between buyers and sellers as an alternative to conventional bank-created debt-money.

Clearly something that has achieved general acceptance and use for 75 years has earned the right to be called a currency.  Let’s hope the Cheers, Hours and Plenty earn their place in the paper money currency Hall of Fame.

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Personal Finance Software For Seniors

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To help handle personal finances in the best way during a tough recession like this, many people turn to Personal Finance software. As a result, there is a plethora of personal finance software programs to consider. The right choice is always a very personal matter given particular needs. However everyone wants a good user experience. In other words it should be a pleasure to use and it should do the job.

If you have this software choice dilemma, you may find the reviews at Personal Finance Software a good place to start your exploration.

Of course everyone and particularly seniors is looking for something that is easy to use and install. So we list below the Top Ten choices in descending order of attractiveness. In each case, the comments on Ease of Use and Installation from the review site are displayed. By clicking on the link, you can see the full review, which clearly you should do before homing in on the choice that works for you.

Personal Finance Software – Top Ten Reviews

with Ease of Use/Install Comments

    Quicken Starter Edition – Gold Award
    Quicken Starter Edition was easy to install, and easy to use. It’s not packed with a bunch of clutter, so finding what you need and figuring out how to use features is a snap.
    Microsoft Money Essentials – Silver Award
    Microsoft Money was easy to install, and very easy to use. We found it had a little more of a polished interface compared to Quicken Starter Edition and Moneydance. The update process was simple, and Money’s home page provides a great at-a-glance summary of your finances.
    Moneydance – Bronze Award
    The main page of Moneydance is visually simple, which is one of its strengths. The navigation bar and buttons can get you to any section, and the main content area neatly summarizes your accounts, even displaying bill reminders and a tidy calendar. Adding new accounts is a snap as well, and Moneydance 2009 connects to a large number of banks and credit unions the world over.
    AceMoney
    AceMoney was easy to install, and even easier to use. It’s not difficult to figure out what you need to do to access your portfolio, schedule bills and deposits, or run reports, to name a few. AceMoney also supports importing data in a large number of formats, including qif, ofx, ofc, qfx, and xml, so even if AceMoney can’t automatically update your account information, it can read files your bank exports.
    BankTree Personal
    BankTree was easy to install, and easy to use, with large navigation buttons at the top that make it apparent where to go to look at accounts, reports, etc.
    RichOrPoor
    We were disappointed RichOrPoor doesn’t have a setup wizard to guide you through the setup process. RichOrPoor doesn’t import any of the standard formats that most banks use, such as qif or csv. You have to locate where the information goes and then type it in. This becomes tiresome, considering some personal finance software packages connect directly to your bank accounts, and most import a standard set of file types. If by chance your bank exports your accounts to a .rop file, your data entry would be diminished significantly. Once you have entered all of your information, accounts, balances, transactions, and so on, the program is fairly easy to navigate. It’s getting there that’s a chore.
    Budget Express
    Budget Express is a software program that focuses primarily on budgeting and does a good job—this combined with its functionality make Budget Express one of the top ten money management products. If Budget express wanted to compete with some of the all inclusive financial software packages, they would have to add financial planning and investing features.
    Account Xpress
    Accounts Xpress doesn’t offer a setup wizard to help you initially input your financial information. This is a real downfall for people who are not familiar with finance software.
    iCash
    iCash has the ability to reconcile your accounts with your
    bank statements and form a budget for everything in your books. We only found five different reports available within this product: balance sheet, profit and loss statement, profit and loss summary, account statement and taxes.
    Home Bookkeeping
    A user-friendly toolbar, that allows you to quickly access all your accounts, expenses, income, planning and debt, makes Home Bookkeeping a good program for the computer novice. The program was easy to install and we didn’t encounter any errors during installation.

Given the importance of the software working for you, if you have either good or poor experiences of any of these personal finance software programs, why not add a comment here. You then will be helping others to make a better choice.

Footnote: If you are interested in books on Personal Finance, then why not visit the Personal Finances Bookstore.

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Fair Pay For All

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It is good to see that President Obama’s first law concerned The fight for fair pay.

President Barack Obama’s first bill, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act he signed into law, loosens the statute of limitations under which workers can sue employers for pay discrimination based on characteristics such as gender, race, age or disability.  To ward off discrimination suits, companies will need to meticulously document pay decisions and retain detailed employment records, legal experts say.

It is rather ironic that should have been the first bill, since at the same time he is acting on salaries and compensation at the other end of the scale.

The President proposes to limit the total compensation for senior executives of those companies receiving support under the bailout arrangement.  The top brass would no longer have golden parachutes and the severance packages to those in the second tire would be limited to one year’s salary.  Although it may sound perfectly reasonable to you and me, it immediately raises criticisms from others.

For example, Carly Fiorina, former chief executive of HP, believes that Government shouldn’t decide executive pay.

Americans are outraged over excessive CEO pay and perks. That outrage is justified, particularly when American taxpayers are footing the bill.  Our capitalist system works best when there is transparency and accountability. There has been too little of both on Wall Street.

She is concerned that the proposed cap for top executive pay at $500,000 for institutions that have received bailout money is arbitrary and applies only to them.  She calls for an across-the-board approach.

  • To strengthen transparency, all aspects of CEO pay and perks should be fully disclosed on a regular basis. This should include airplanes, cars, golf-club memberships, bonuses, stock options, retirement plans and salaries — in short everything that a common-sense person would consider part of a CEO reward package.
  • To strengthen accountability, all aspects of CEO compensation should be voted on by shareholders on an annual basis.

These are very reasonable suggestions and legislation to bring them in would receive wide support.  However the President’s proposed limits send a strong message and prepare the ground for such legislation down the road.  Open government requires transparency and equity.  Fair pay for all should apply at all levels.

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Use your cash wisely

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In a time of recession such as we are all undergoing, it is important to use whatever limited cash resources you have in the wisest way possible.  It may be that things will go even worse.  It also may last longer than the experts are predicting.  The wise course is to be ready for whatever comes.

An important factor is to make sure that you are getting the maximum bang for your buck.  It is worth looking carefully at even small improvements.  An old British saying is relevant here:

Take care of the pence and the pounds will take care of themselves.

The same sentiment is expressed in a Scottish version:

Many a mickle maks a muckle.

A CNN article this week is worth reviewing since it offers 20 money-savers that add up.  They are all worth considering but here are four that particularly caught my eye:

  • The leak: Paying bills by snail mail.
  • The fix: Save time and money by signing up with the billers’ customer-service departments to have your bills paid by credit card or automatic debit; payments will be documented on your monthly bank statement.
  • The leak: Paying the minimum on credit cards.
  • The fix: Savings accounts earn little to no interest, so dip into them to pay off your balance. If you don’t have savings, pay double the minimum and slowly increase your payments each month.  Pay off higher-interest credit cards first, and never skip a payment, which can result in a late fee of $35 or more and an increased rate on all your credit cards.
  • The leak: A cell-phone plan that doesn’t match your needs.
  • The fix: On average, according to the consumer research firm J.D. Power & Associates, cell-phone subscribers use only 64 percent of the minutes they pay for.  If you’re still under contract, call your cell-phone company and ask it to analyze your usage.
  • The leak: Letting the water run.
  • The fix: Turn off the tap while you’re brushing your teeth or shaving — every minute the water flows wastes up to 2 1/2 gallons, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.  Run full loads in washing machines and dishwashers.

Perhaps you should do a similar review of what you do each day to make sure that you are not inadvertently allowing dollars to leak away without you getting appropriate value for them.  It is not a question of being a Scrooge.  It is just avoiding needless ways your money may be working less effectively than it could.

By the way, if you are a student then we would recommend Use Your Cash Wisely: 10 Major Money Tips.  It’s another good check list of what is important in handling your cash resources well.

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Phony Money

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Apparently more and more people are using phony money.

That is not the kind of phony money that appears in that Denny commercial.  No, we are talking about ‘real’ counterfeit money.  It is not surprising that in economic hard times, more people are resorting to using fake money.

Counterfeiting arrests in the USA jumped 28% in 2008 over 2007 — the highest number since 2004, according to the US Secret Service, a division of the Homeland Security Department that safeguards the nation’s currency. Counterfeiters passed $64.4 million in fake cash into the economy, a 5% increase over 2007 and also a five-year high, according to Special Agent Darrin Blackford, spokesman for the agency.

It’s not just the criminal element, but we’re also seeing more students that maybe use a counterfeit $20 bill to buy pizza or someone trying to do it to purchase gas to get to work,” says Brian Marr, Secret Service special agent. Reports of fake bills spiked this year when gas prices hit record highs.

CosmoLoan has some interesting information about counterfeit money.

  1. More people are faking it
  2. Coin Clipping used to be prevalent
  3. Death to all counterfeiters was the rule less than 400 years ago
  4. The US Secret Service was originally founded to suppress the major counterfeit currency racket going on in 1865
  5. Attacking countries with their own fake money has been used as a means of warfare
  6. Catch Me if You Can is the story of the world’s greatest check counterfeiter, Frank Abagnale.
  7. Superdollar or Note Family – C14342 has been able to fool many experts who were unable to tell it apart from legitimate currency.  It is believed that 1 out of every 10 000 bills in circulation in the US is a Superdollar.
  8. You must accept counterfeit money and then turn it in without reimbursement
  9. In Canada today many businesses still refuse 50 dollar and 100 dollar bills following a huge counterfeiting operation in 2001.
  10. Poor quality Ink-jet printed money represented 60% of the counterfeit currency collected.

The Bank of Canada takes counterfeiting very seriously and responds by a number of measures to help in Counterfeiting prevention.

  • researching and developing new security features that are difficult to copy and easy to use;
  • working with law enforcement to monitor and respond to counterfeiting activity; and
  • showing Canadians, especially those who handle cash regularly, how to verify bank notes to make sure they’re genuine

They even now have an exhibit in their Currency Museum that showcases the history of phony cash.  The exhibit opened Jan. 6 and is called The Good, The Bad, and The Fake.

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Books On Personal Finances and Money

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Given the current economic hard times, there is heightened interest in personal finances and of course, in money.  Not surprisingly books on money are also more popular than usual. If you are searching for a book on personal finances or money, then you have come to the right place.

Senior Money Memos has its own Personal Finances Bookstore.  It is reached via the navigation tab at the right of the menu bar.  If you cannot find your desired book on money there, then perhaps you may find it among some of the money books listed in this post.

For a start, here are five books that have their fans.

If you wish to build a money book collection, then here are some book lists that others have recommended:

Finally if all else fails then you could search for your book at Amazon.  The search box here on the right lists all the books that Amazon has on money and is a convenient way to search for a specific money book title if you remember part of the title.

If you have a particular book on money that you think deserves a wider audience, then why not add a comment about the book.  Your help will be much appreciated.

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Money as Debt

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Any blog on money could not fail to include Paul Grignon’s 47-minute animated presentation of “Money as Debt”.  It tells in graphic terms what money is and how it is being created. The Cowichan Citizens Coalition and its Duncan Initiative received high praise from those who have previewed it.

Given the present global depression, it is particularly appropriate.  It deserves the widest distribution and use by all those who are concerned with the present unsustainable monetary system in Canada and the United States.

Footnote: If you are interested in books on Money, then why not visit the Money section of the Money Bookstore.

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