Trickle Economics

I've started posting on this blog again, and i'm firmly focussed on the future (in so many ways!)

So what is my next step? I've stated that I plan to achieve sixty blog posts on www.powerparents.co.uk this year, and i'm now on fifteen, including this one. My next natural step after achieving 25% of my aim would normally be... to give up.

I blogged in November when I started this site, I blogged a little in December, and posted a single article in January- and then I gave up.

Yes, we moved house. Yes, I got a new job. Yes, we have a baby on the way. But these are all excuses that I let myself believe to be the true reasons for my halted productivity. Truthfully, the events of those lost months would have provided me with a number of excellent posts tied into the Power Parent concept- but my innate laziness and reliance on excuses let me down.

Power Parents is a truly awesome concept. Do this, teach your child that, earn money in this way, and you end up with clever kids who are going to be happy, successful adults. I may only ever get one hundred regular readers of this blog; I may only ever sell one hundred copies of my book, but if I do nothing, not only am I passing up the chance to achieve these numbers, i'm also negating any possibility that I could potentially turn this into something revolutionary and life-changing- both for my family and yours too!

So this is where the trickle economics comes in. Knowing that I put off paying the bills regularly just as I put off pretty much everything, I decided to change my perspective on my finances.

I looked at what we spend, considered what posessions I truly value, and thought about the money i'd need in the future to buy my children a house each.

One of my favourite buys ever is our projector. My middle room (between the front room and the kitchen) has a pull-down projector screen, surround sound amp, and projector in it. The kids sometimes watch films and music videos when they are eating their dinner, I play on the PS3 in there, we all have a blast on our favourite Xbox Kinect games in there (helping us to keep fit and the kids to develop their physicality) and we occasionally pull the sofa out and have a family film night. The only problem with the projector is the cost of a new bulb. Every 4000 hours a new bulb needs to be purchased- costing £200. Now £200 isn't much, but as I pretty much always spend my 'spare' £200 a month the new bulb cost usually comes out of my savings.

So I got my calculator out. £200/4000 hours gives us an hourly cost of 5p- an insanely small amount of money! Heck, these bulbs are ridiculously cheap compared to what you get! But we don't usually see things in terms of cost per hour- we focus on how much it costs to buy in the first place, and how much it will cost to replace ignoring the years of use in between. This is illogical, and unless we do something to plan for the gradual costs of our 'bulbs'- be they laptops, electrical appliances, new beds, a new car, or any other irregular and costly purchase- they will end up costing us a bomb.

So every time we watch a film I chuck 10p into my 'bulb fund' jar. When the bulb eventually blows, I have the cash there and ready to go. 10p is nothing to watch a film on a 92" cinema screen in my lovely home, and i'm pretty keen to ensure my children get to see lots of great films through their childhood in addition to the vibrant cartoons they are so fond of. The projector was a great purchase, and we use it most days.

There are two great things about trickle economics (it's a concept i've invented and named myself, by the way!)
-I usually put in more than 10p. The film was good? I dig a pound out of my work trousers and chuck it into the fund. Play a game and have a bunch of spare change hanging around the mantlepiece? Heck, chuck it all in, I don't need it! By doing this, the last time I needed a new bulb I found that over £1000 had trickled into the jar! I treated myself to a new HD projector and Onkyo amp, seriously upgrading my setup whilst spending absolutely nothing from my bank account, and I still had a spare £250 to add to my savings account.
-I never take from my various funds that are scattered around the house. If I have cash in the bank, it gets spent. If I fancy a six pack of beer but have no spare cash in my account, I won't take from a fund. It wouldn't seem right. The money is there to replace things we use regularly and really enjoy owning- but by the same measure, if there was ever an emergency, I usually have a couple of thousand in change around the house in jars labelled 'projector', 'washing machine', 'new mattress', 'car fund' and 'laptop'.

Can you grasp how useful trickle economics is? As the money is pretty much always there when something breaks or needs replacing, it's almost like I never actually need to buy any large goods. It rarely costs me more than a couple of pounds (although driving holidays in Europe add a good couple of hundred pounds into the new car fund as I try to put in 20p per mile).

Education works in a similar way; learn one new word a day and you'll be an assured linguist in just a couple of years. As for me, i'm going to use trickle economics to work towards my goals.