Linden Dollars, the currency of Second Life, holds somewhere the middle between monopoly money and real money. You can get yourself some Linden Dollars the easy way by buying them or the hard way by working for it.

In case you somehow would manage to be a successful entrepreneur in Second Life you can also sell your Linden Dollars and exchange them into real money.

When you buy Linden Dollars you buy them on an exchange, residents who have Linden Dollars but want to exchange them for real money sell them on this exchange, residents who do not have Linden Dollars but would like some buy them on this exchange. You are not buying or selling from Linden Labs.

Buying Linden Dollars..

It goes easy and smooth, just click the Buy L$ button in your viewer and you will be guided amongst the few steps needed to get yourself some L$ cash. After being a while in Second Life you really should consider getting yourself some. Exchange rates vary a bit but for a few dollars you get yourself thousands of Linden Dollars. It is nice not to be broke and to afford yourself that few items you really want and don’t get for free.. or perhaps a little home.

You need either a credit card or a pay pal account when buying Linden Dollars. Who doesn’t have a paypal account can create one at www.paypal.com . You can get money on your paypal account on many ways also without a credit card. Those who just don’t have a credit card or a bank account could also have a look at alternatives as dxexchange. Be ready to pay a bit more for your Linden Dollars when you use alternative services.

When you buy Linden dollars, you are not buying them from Linden Labs but from other residents. Behind the screens a tranaction takes place on a currency exchange. Other residents are selling their Linden dollars on this exchange, you are buying, at the current rate.

Buy your Linden dollars smart by paying a bit attention to this fact, and you will get much more L$ for your money than just clicking the buy button.

Make money

It is about time to introduce the term micro-economy. Yes you can work in Second Life, although jobs are pretty hard to find, but don’t expect to be paid any amount that comes nearby a real salary. 200 L$ an hour, which is less than a real dollar, is considered a quite nice salary. You work in second life because you like to, not to get rich.

It could be still nice to be a Deejay. a call girl, a sales man or a security guard..just don’t think it will get you rich.

Starting your own business might be a better idea, but be careful : Most who tried failed. Many run their businesses just for pleasure, being happy with a little profit and not caring too much about a little loss. Only a very few are really successful and perhaps a few dozen actually makes their real life living in Second Life.

I am not too much into Second Life business, but know one thing: You got the splendid idea to start a club, make clothes and sell them or go in the real estate business? That are the 3 most common ideas. There are already a lot of good clubs, an enormous supply of clothes and quite some real estate is vacant. Your chance on success as a newcomer on these markets should be about 0.1% or so. Unless you do have a great idea….

Free money

Yes! It is the 21st century, you deserve free money. Although the big times of camping and money trees are in the past, there is still plenty of free money available.

Watch out for the rats though!! On places as Money Island and McMoney you can get free L$ in exchange for … filling in surveys on the web. Just drop all your private data, and spend hours of filling in crap, in exchange for a few L$, hardly worth more than the electricity your computer used during that time.

That is..if you get your money.

So? Better have a look at my guide to free L$.

A bit more about the L$

Premium account members of Second Life do get stipend, a weekly amount of L$. That is where a L$ starts existing. For some services within second life (uploading a texture, getting married, placing a classified ad) residents have to pay with L$, there Linden Labs takes the L$ back and it stops existing.

For the main services (land) Linden Labs doesn’t want to be paid in L$ but in real $. You can still buy or rent land and pay in L$ but then you don’t rent it from Linden Labs but from someone who does rent it from Linden Labs and pays them in real $ for it.

Who doesn’t have a premium account and still wants L$ or does have one but wants more, should find a way to make money.. sell something, do something, work, whatever. That’s what makes Second Life an economy, the money goes from the one resident to the other, in exchange for something.

When you buy L$ you buy it from other residents who made a lot and want to exchange it back into real money. Trading happens on the currency exchange, named Lindex.  Linden Labs offers that Lindex as a service but isn’t a party, they don’t buy or sell L$ (except when no one else is selling, then they sell).

The L$ can be seen as real money, it is worth something and you can exchange it into real $..and then paypal can change it back for you in Euro, pounds, yen or whatever. But it is not real money.

Also in the legal sense a Linden Dollar is no real money.  Amongst other things Linden Labs has the right to make your money vanish, to create as much L$ as they feel like and surely are not guaranteeing its value.

And why is that important?
It is not important at all. At least not for us, common avatars, we can safely confuse a L$ with real money. Except that it just isn’t real money but game money that can be exchanged into real money.. as long as others are buying it and it didn’t vanish.

It never vanishes though, and when it does they try to sort it out.
But it could vanish and they don’t have to sort it out.

Ok ok ok ok..Let’s make a deal. I stop nagging about this subject and you promise me that you do some further reading before investing your entire retirement fund into virtual money or virtual land (Yes..that’s also NOT real land.)

so?

• Wanna know how to buy your L$ at a better rate? Read it here
• You don’t want to buy L$, you want it for free. Have a look at my guide to free L$.
• You want to know why it isn’t real money? Scroll up and read again.
• You have a lot of L$ but don’t want it? Look up an avatar named SLI Chun and give it to her.