Home traders toss the buck

Sydney’s ‘freeconomy’ has boomed in recent months, with membership of the Local Energy Trading System (LETS) exceeding 400 – many traders coming from the inner city.

A community centred around swapping items and services, LETS is an approach to buying and selling that does not involve money. Instead Sydneysiders active in the scheme trade on a fixed rate of 20 ‘operas’ an hour, an invisible currency that measures everybody’s time at equal worth.

The system has been a saviour to Waterloo mother Jacqui Kennedy, who revitalised the scheme in Sydney in 2003 after running LETS in Illawarra for 12 years.

Unable to work with a newborn child without spending a fortune on childcare, Ms Kennedy supplemented her income by trading her knitting skills for other services.

“Back when I was living in Wollongong, when I was a stay at home mum…my LETS income was greater than my pension,” she said.

More recently, Ms Kennedy used the system to pay for her daughter’s HSC tutoring.

Purchases are recorded using a web based credit exchange system, and Sydney LETS members can trade between cities, states or internationally.

Words like ‘debt’ are not used and interest is non-existent in the LETS system. Instead, you are in ‘commitment’ that you must work off by providing goods or services to others.

Services provided by web designers, lawyers or babysitters are all of equal value, no matter what your qualification.

“In the real world a masseuse can charge $60 an hour, and a babysitter can only charge $15. A lawyer can charge $300. A web designer can charge $150. There’s this huge discrepancy in the value of people and their time,” said Ms Kennedy.

“So when I started the Sydney system I started it on the absolute premise that it’s not what you value yourself at, it’s that everyone’s time is equal.”

While Ms Kennedy offers web design as a trade, her neighbour Ifeanna Tooth, a botanist, looks after her garden. In turn, Ms Tooth buys food, books and nappies for her young son at local trading days, which now happen once every three months.

With recent boosts in numbers, many acknowledge the current economic climate has pushed people toward alternative trading schemes like LETS. But the system has always proven attractive to those traditionally living on the fringe.

Darlinghurst student Emma Peel started trading two months ago, offering proof reading and babysitting services.

“I’m a student so money is always a concern. I thought it was a really interesting alternative to the current financial situation that we’re going through,” said Peel.

Steadily gaining recognition from various governments, local energy trading could be counted towards Dole requirements in NSW for single parents and the unemployed, with similar arrangements encouraged in Western Australia.

Source: www.altmedia.net.au/home-traders-toss-the-buck/6349