It dawned on me one day that, when I put down my two cents worth on paper, it cost me at least five rupees to get it across to you the editor by post.

Faxing it would tax me further.

Piqued at the disproportionate expenses, I mused. This was a financial tickler I surely wanted to sort out.

The more I pondered, the more I was convinced that it was no child’s play to unsnare it.

Then it occurred to me that of all the rates that have zoomed up over the last few decades the increase in the price of petrol had outbeaten them all.

The cost of petrol which was Rs. 2 or so a gallon (Yes Sir, a gallon), prior to Opec, came to be traded in litres later.

Let us face it - no motorist would have turned into a petrol station if he was due to cough out nearly Rs. 600 a gallon.

I am convinced that, had petrol been sold by the gallon at that price in Sri Lanka, the traffic on our roads would have trickled down to a minimum.

It may have been limited to ministerial motorcades rushing at breakneck speeds to be in time to lay a foundation stone or to cut the first sod at an auspicious hour.

But once fuel was priced by the litre, it seemed so soft on the car owners’ psyche, and business was as usual. Then an idea clicked in my mind.

If world prices of consumables on which we are so shamefully dependant thwarted price reductions in our land, we could cut down on the quantum of the purchase unit.

In less technical jargon, instead of selling at Rs. 100 a kilo, we could price it at Rs. 45.45 a pound of sugar.

The elated housewives will pound their way to the market blessing the price regulators.

They will no doubt feel relieved at the "East on the purse rate".

This formula has an added advantage.

In the predictable certainty of a further increase of the price to Rs. 50 a pound, the consumers will stomach it sans a whimper.

Reason - by then the buyers would have been conditioned to paying a higher rate by not receiving the balance at the older rate on a tendered Rs. 50 note.

I will commend this ploy to any economic advisor.

I will tag it as "The smaller buying unit formula".

I applied this principle recently in my own marketing programme, and found it to be very customer-friendly.

The price of ‘Ambul’ (sour) plantains which stood at a steady Rs. 80 a kg, suddenly shot upto Rs. 120 a kg, soon after Christmas.

This worked out to be at least Rs. 10 for one fruit. So, I decided to buy five or six plantains at a time and not by weight.

I found this to be kinder on the purse.

Now with this novel innovation, in purchasing, the name of the fruit will still remain as ‘Ambul’, but the price will never be sour!