Local currency catches on

Some local consumers are putting away their credit cards and exchanging their U.S. dollars for a local currency to help businesses cope with the recession.

A currency called the PLENTY, the Piedmont Local Economy Tender, is becoming increasingly popular in Orange and Chatham counties.

Greensboro businesses also are pushing for the currency.

One PLENTY equals $1, but because it is only a regional currency, PLENTYs spent stay within the Piedmont area, boosting local small businesses.

There are now 45 businesses in the area that accept the currency and a record number of PLENTY bills in circulation, said Camille Armantrout, secretary and treasurer of PLENTY.

“It shows that we are independent of the global economy and interdependent on the local community,” she said.

Business owners can choose to either use the PLENTY or exchange it for traditional bills.

The bills read “In each other we trust,” rather than “In God we trust,” to show the belief in the strength of the local economy, Armantrout said.

PLENTYs started in 2002 and were often used at businesses such as Weaver Street Market and Cat’s Cradle in Carrboro. Many businesses stopped accepting them a few years later because they weren’t backed by a local bank and businesses could not exchange them for U.S. dollars.

“It had a burst of activity at the beginning and then we had a lot of it, and it wasn’t circulating,” said Ruffin Slater, general manager for Weaver Street Market.

The PLENTY was relaunched in May 2009 when Capital Bank in Pittsboro began backing it up.

“It’s treated just like any other currency, like the Canadian dollar or the Euro,” said B.J. Lawson, president of the Board of Trustees for PLENTY.

Armantrout, who gets paid in PLENTYs, said they are easier and more meaningful to use because consumers do not have to leave their community.

“If you’re using credit cards or Federal Reserve money, you just pull out the plastic, but it doesn’t mean anything,” she said.

About 70 communities around the country are now printing local money to cope with the recession, Lawson said.

Patrick Conway, an economics professor at UNC, said local currencies are both good and bad.

“If you spend it once, that’s not the end of it,” he said, adding that it can also lead to local job creation.

However, because not all businesses accept local currencies, it limits the economy, Conway said.

Oscar Moncada, owner of the Chapel Hill Bed and Breakfast, said he recently started accepting PLENTYs because he considers it to be “a win-win situation.”

“It’s a way of creating a community of local businesses because we all have the same problem with the local economy,” he said. “United, we can help each other.”


Contact the State & National Editor at stntdesk@unc.edu.