Money & Family
FamilyTaxi.uk
Go anywhere. Pay in chores.
Why it exists
I spend a ridiculous amount of time being my kids’ taxi driver. School runs, dance, football, friends’ houses. Every trip, the same thought: they have no real sense of what things cost — not just money, but time and effort.
I could lecture them. Or I could teach them the way they’d actually learn: through an app that works exactly like the ones they already understand. FamilyTaxi does two jobs at once. It teaches them how marketplaces like Uber actually work — pricing, demand, ratings, reputation — and it makes the cost of my time visible and payable. They exchange chores for miles. I exchange petrol for an emptied dishwasher. Everyone learns something; the lawn gets mowed.
What it is
A real taxi app for one household:
- Kids book rides like it’s Uber — pickup, destination, time, real address lookup, live distance and ETA.
- Parents set the fare in chores — empty the dishwasher, walk the dog, mow the lawn. Kids can haggle by walking part of the way. No chore done, no taxi: it auto-cancels at pickup.
- Genuine surge pricing — rain ×1.5, snow ×2, before 7:45am ×2 (“you woke the driver — this will be remembered”), Sunday roast hours ×1.25. Demand economics, taught at the kitchen table.
- Two-way ratings and a permanent record — kids rate the ride, I rate the chore. There’s a leaderboard, chore inspections, and a Most Nagged Rider award.
- Runs like a real product — standing orders for weekly clubs, push-notification reminders at 24h/2h/30min, installs to their home screen like a native app.
Does it actually work?
Yes — and that’s the surprising bit. They plan their week. They think ahead. They understand the ride has a cost. Because it’s a real app with ratings and reminders, it’s a system — not another thing Dad nags about.
What it proves
The best product spec is a real household problem. And that a working two-sided marketplace — pricing engine, reputation system, notifications — is now a spare-evening build when you have an agent team.