The SVU

Prices in ForeSight are given in svu (Standard Value Units), pronounced "svoo" — a coin borrowed from Jack Vance's Gaean Reach novels. It's a measure of value, not a currency: it lets one price list serve every setting, from a medieval market to a starport.

One svu is the fair market pay for an hour of unskilled labor — and, conveniently, about the price of a Big Mac meal in modern terms. (The Economist's Big Mac Index uses the same trick to compare real buying power across countries, so it's a sturdier yardstick than any national currency.) In present-day US terms that's very roughly $10.

To convert svu to your setting's money, find one thing whose value you know — an hour's unskilled wage, a cheap hot meal — and scale from there. A svu divides into 100 cents for small change.