SNOFCOIN: Building a Family Currency

Photo by Nikita Andreev on Unsplash

Four months ago I wrote about the idea of creating a family currency (SNOFCOIN). Well, we've started work on it. Actually, I got home one day and my youngest showed me some work she'd done in creating a price list. Clearly the discussions we'd had earlier in the year had been percolating around her brain and she was ready for action.

We sat down today and asked three important questions: why we want a family currency; how it'll work; and what we need.

Why We Want a Family Currency

I encouraged the girls to start with a why. We came up with:

• It's something that's just ours
• It gives you the freedom to do what you want
• It makes things you don't want to do fun
• You can get people to do things for you
• "I like earning stuff"
• It's just fun

How It'll Work

This is an important question and we'll probably need to revisit this a few times. But for now we have:

• You earn them by doing things
• You spend them on things you want
• You can exchange them with each other
• They come from some sort of central bank/mint
• They can be exchanged for cash

Obviously the first three things on the list are pretty straightforward; the last two are much more tricky.

What We Need

This is where the making properly starts. On our list was:

• A logo
• A bank and/or mint
• Physical coins
• A digital platform
• A price list
• Trust

Again, most of this is self explanatory. We're currently thinking that we'll have some combination of physical coins and a digital platform. When one or more of us builds up quite a few physical coins they'll get translated into digital currency and the coins will go back to the bank for future use. Obviously this is going to take some trial and error.

My eldest came up with the need for trust; she realised that we needed to trust each other for this to work. She's right of course.

In the How category are plenty of other things we haven't bothered to discuss yet, which we'll properly explore at a later date. The biggest of these I think is the idea that SNOFCOIN has a life outside our family. We already plan for it to exchange for cash but how else can it relate to other people and currencies?

Next Steps

So, we're now working on a few things off the list: the logo, the physical coins and price list. The initial price list ideas have been rather illuminating: aside from the expected spending options of more time watching television and going to be later, the girls have suggested things like fines for hurting each other and payments for casting votes in the event of disagreements (maybe when choosing a film to watch, for example).

The other noticeable thing about creating a price list is how many of the earning items are matters of judgement: cooking and cleaning could mean pretty much anything. We'll have to see how we get on with that.

So there's plenty to do, and the first coupe of weeks will be largely about prototyping and reflecting; I'll write it all up as we go, and I'm hoping to encourage the girls to blog about it too. In the meantime, If anyone out there has any suggestions on methods of creating or using a digital platform for this project please let me know.