i used to believe that money came from a plant. that if you planteted a penny you would have a penny tree and you would have tons of money. i planted over 10 dollars worth of money at the house i lived in.

blake

I used to belive that when people gave you change at a store, they were making the difference bettween what you paid and what the thing you bought cost, weather you paid less or more.

I had this kick-ass plan where I would buy a diamond with 5cents and become rich.

Myles

I remember I didn't understand the difference between $1, $10, $20, etc. We would go to the store and my mom would pay with one bill. I thought that meant that you could buy all you wanted for just one dollar. Sometimes we bought lots, but sometimes we would buy just a couple of things, and I used to get upset that we were wasting our dollars when we could have got so much more.

Kelly

When check books used to have that thick purple carbon paper in it, my mom would hand it to me to throw away, but make me hold it with the very tips of my finger and thumb. She was very specific that I not to touch it, but wouldn't tell me that she just didn't want me to get ink on me or my clothes, because it might be difficult to get out. She would just say, "You don't want to get it on you, trust me." So I always thought it was something like an acid that would eat away at my skin and was deathly afraid of it. I was in my early 20's before realizing carbon paper was harmless!

Lee

As a child, I use to think that when people made money, they literally made money. The rich people were just much better at it than the poor people. Being ambitious and possessing an entrepreneurial spirit, I started to practice making my own money. I still can’t imagine what my parents were thinking when I proudly announced my own counterfeiting operation. I think even the Secret Service would have found it funny to see a six year old making his own dollars with construction paper and crayons.

Wonder Weirdo

when i was a child, i used to believe paper notes (money), once become crumpled or soaked wet, would be unacceptable and unuseable. well, mom gave me and my sister (younger than me yet infinitely wiser) a $5 bill one day after school to go get some groceries, I dropped it in the gutter and it was promptly soaked with rain water. my sis picked it up and said it's ok, use it, i grabbed it from her and chucked it out the window, which got blown away immediately. my sis saw such horror on my face, not because she thought I did such a stupid thing as throwing away good money, but that I made it wet in the first place!

eric

When I heard the stock market reports on the radio, I thought they were buying and selling *chairs*, not shares. Millions of them, with the price changing all the time.

Anon

I used to think that the more expensive a person's car was, the poorer they must have been because they spent all their money on the car.

Mia

I used to believe that every family could have no more than $100 dollars at a time. If you spent some of your money, you would get it back the next day to make up $100. If your family wanted something that cost more than $100, you had to go in on it with other families and share it.

Emma

I believed that store proprietors personally owned everything in the store, and they could decide to charge whatever prices they wanted. Therefore if some item was very expensive, the storekeeper was obviously just being mean and greedy (especially if there were a lot of the thing in stock).

I told my mother that when I grew up, I would have a store that charged very low prices for everything (like a penny for a vacuum cleaner) so that everyone could afford what they needed. That's when she explained to me how stores' inventory really works, but I still didn't quite understand.

Anon

Back in elementary school, my class was learning about the different coins and the presidents represented on them. Several people in my class thought that JFK must have been the smallest president, because his picture was on the smallest coin, the dime.

Maeghan Jade

I persuaded myself that I had been conned all along by the local shop - who had been charging me a penny per sweet I bought from there. The sign said 1p - not 1p per sweet. So I tried to buy 20 - with 1p. I argued my case, but the shopkeeper was bigger than me.

Skinnier than I might have been

When I was a little kid I used to believe that tissue paper was money and that you could have a box of money.

Anon

when i was in nursery school, my friend and i would spend hours on the playground talking about all the stuff we would buy if we had $100. i was going to buy a mansion

adam j. sontag

When I was 6 , used to believe that nothing had a price. I thought money equaled money and it didnt matter how much you gave. (at least thats what i was taught in church). So when I took a Taxi home one day from school, I paid the man a nickel from my little coin purse, thanked him for the ride and went about my business. The man waved as if I did the right thing and drove away. Never did it cross my mind that the man was being generous and thought of my actions a cute specticle.

Smart Cookie

As children, whenever my brothers or I recieved money as a gift we took great pleasure in bringing it to the bank to deposit it in our savings accounts. We were told that we were saving the money so that we could go to college. I truly believed that "College" was some sort of theme park or something. I remembering wondering WHEN we were going to take this trip to college. I was crushed when I learned what it really was!!

college bound!

If you didn't have enough money to buy an item in a shop the shop assistanct gave you the shortfall and this was the change.

Martin

i used to think if you had more than £100 the police would want to know why and would start investgating you

mark

I was told when I was young that I could get a new petticoat from the Sears Catalog when our ship came in. I thought our money came twice a year on a ship that also brought our Spring and Fall clothes from Sears Roebuck.

Cheri

As a kid, I never understood the concept of "change" at supermarkets. I was always delighted that you could hand a piece of green paper to the cashiers, then get many pieces of green paper and pretty coins in return. I thought that my parents should be rich after going to the supermarket enough times. I never understood how my parents could have financial problems.

anonymous