What is Mula?

The theory

One pound today isn't the same as one pound twenty years ago. Invisible economic forces make your money worth less every day.

But you have no way of seeing that. When you hold a pound coin in your hand, it looks the same. You don't literally see your pound coins shrink when they get less valuable.

So everyone's walking around getting paid and saving up with money that quietly gets cheaper over time. If I asked you how much money you've lost from that, you almost certainly don't know. But it's a documented and important force on our lives.

Real value economics

That's where the economics comes in. For decades, analysts and experts have calculated and quantified the way that money loses value over time, by measuring money's real value.

By calculating the real value of money, you can see what all of the invisible economic forces are doing to your money. It's like seeing your pound coins shrink every day. When you can see the problem, you can deal with it.

The problem is that most people don't know how to do those calculations. Even if you know how, you probably aren't going to spend a lot of your time keeping up to date on those calculations.

A better way

That's where the concept for Mula comes from. Mula is a fictional currency that is entirely based on real value, not invisible economic forces.

When you convert the number on your payslip to Mula, you'll see what it's actually worth. When you convert the number in your bank account to Mula, you can see how it's actually changing over time. It's simple and it shows you what your money's really doing.

Of course, Mula isn't a replacement for the proper calculations. It makes a few assumptions and generalisations. However, it's meant to serve as a useful entry point into the world of real value economics, and to empower ordinary people to learn more about what their money does every day.