When my parents first moved into our first family home with my brother and me, my mum came up with a clever solution for babysitting

Starting a family often means money is tight, and babysitting can quickly become an expensive luxury

To solve this, she organised a babysitting group with other local families who faced the same challenge

Instead of paying cash, they used a simple token system

Each family was given ten tokens to start with

One token equaled one hour of babysitting

After midnight, however, the rate doubled, two tokens per hour

If you ran out of tokens, the only way to earn more was by babysitting for someone else in the group

It created a fair and balanced system where everyone contributed, and no money needed to change hands

My mum recently told me she was never short of tokens. Why?

Because she often babysat for a couple who loved clubbing and wouldn’t leave until 11 PM, returning in the early hours

Those late nights quickly boosted her token stash

The photo is of my brother (left) and I (right) I'm the one standing on the bike (tricycle) saddle

Conclusion
What began as a practical money-saving idea turned into an early example of a sharing economy

My mum’s babysitting scheme shows that when communities collaborate, creativity and trust can replace money, and everyone benefits