June 18, 2007
Liberian dollars (also known as LD)

When I first arrived here in Liberia I was expecting things here to be a little cheaper than in America. I was surprised however to find a box of cookies costing $180 and a loaf of bread that was advertised for $20. I later found out that Liberia started producing its own money in 1847 and was almost to same as U.S. money. later they got tired of using small pocket change and switched to a paper only form in 1906. there were many problems with this old form of money, so a new series was introduced when Charles Taylor became president in 1997.
The new Liberian money looks a lot like Canadian money, very colorful and is similar to the monopoly game money. The exchange rate for LD is currently $60 LD to $1 U.S dollar,
This means I feel very rich with $600 in my pocket right now, but after a little math I only have $10. Another cool fact about the money here is that its also counted different, $5 LD is one man and $20 LD is four men ($5 = 1 man).
One last fact to note, U.S. and Liberian money have certain times that they should be used. Small purchases are paid for in LD while larger items are bought in U.S. dollars.