Is it Money or What?

Here is a great post from the Lower Mainland Time Bank blog about the difference between time dollars and money.

Is It Money or What?
There are often questions around whether or not TimeCredits are money (many TimeBanks use the term TimeDollars, LMTB and some other TimeBanks use the term TimeCredits, they are the same thing).

In my understanding and opinion it’s best to keep away from monetary words and concepts as much as possible. The short answer is NO TimeCredits are not money, but they allow you to do many of the same things money does.

To me TimeBanking is about helping your neighbour because you can, and you also know that someone will be there to help you when you need it. Kind of like barn raising or harvest time (way long ago), where neighbouring farmers came from all over to help each other build or harvest (sometimes followed by a big feeding “funfest”).

To use monetary words and concepts invokes the notion of “I’m owed something” and less about volunteering, pay it forward and gifting.

It should be about being free to give and receive and feeling good about both…the credits just help ensure you’re not too out of balance in either giving or receiving, for obvious reasons.

It shouldn’t be about getting equal “dollar value” (or greater) but about creating value and receiving value, freely and regularly. Abundance mentality versus scarcity mentality . Needing to get something in return is not paying to forward or volunteering.

I don’t like and don’t use the “dollar” term or “debt” (although I’ve resorted to using “credit” and “TimeBank” because they can have alternative meanings).

Monetary words and concepts, to me, are old world, limiting ideas that are due for a change. Most people are tied to their present ideas around the “money” words and it’s tough to change the ideas without using new words to describe new ideas.

TimeBanking is a new idea (for most people) that can relate to “moneylike” ideas but needs to be different and unique or else people don’t quite get it and struggle to make it like money, which it is not.

How many hangups do people have about money? Is it time for change?

We’ve been seduced by the money game and forgot the “creating value for people game” which is FAR more rewarding. Yes we need money to live, but less than we think and even less when we work together OUTSIDE the money game.

It is a philosophical shift that requires new language to break free from monetary ideas.

I think sticking with money words and ideas makes TimeBanking harder to understand and invokes scarcity mentality in folks.

TimeCredits (or TimeDollars if you must) are not dollars in any way, shape or form. They never were and hopefully never will be.

Check out the new idea and see what you think.