the world: money

I used to believe you accumulated more money when making a purchase. It made perfect sense when you paid the cashier with a single bill (Ex. $20) and then received many bills in return. Since you had more bills than when you started, you were richer!

For the longest time I thought that when you bought something, and had to pay tax on it, that that particular object was added to some sort of inventory of all of the things you owned and that from that point on, you would have to pay yearly taxes on that object. For that reason I was always very frugal with what toys I asked my parents for because I didn't want them to have to pay taxes on it forever.

When I was little I recall an incident where my mother was trying to get me to be thankful for what I had. She explained to me that there were people in the world who were so poor that they had to pick food out of the gutter. In a struggle to understand this horriffic level of poverty my four year old mind confused the details and for years I believed that people were trapped under the sewer grates and couldn't get out to get food. I wondered for a long time why people never put ladders and boxes of pizza (one of my favorie foods at the time) in front of the sewers so the people could get out and eat.

My cousin used to tell me he was going to sue me if I played with his toys or did anything else that he didn't like. I believed him thinking he was going to take all my money...where the money was that I thought he could take, being 6-7 years old, is still in question.

Having never had to pay for anything myself, I used to believe that people were just willing to help: doctors, mechanics, tow truck drivers, hair stylists, etc. It wasn't until I was in my teens and working that I realized how much in life is dependent on your ability to pay for it.

I used to believe that when I grew up I would never have to pay for anything with cash...I would just use a check. Writing a check totally took the place of cash.

I used to think (back in the forties) that when my mother used her charge card at the local department store it meant that she didn't have to
pay. When I was very small, I thought that when a gas station attendant washed the windshield that he was putting in the gas.

My father once saw me put a quarter in my mouth, and told me that "I should never do that, because someone might have put it in their ass." For years, when I would see someone limping, or just walking funny, I thought I knew why.

When I was 12 or 13, my parents opened a checking account for me to help me learn about financial responsibility. They told me if I wrote a bad check, the sheriff would come to our house and take me to jail. Of course, the sheriff only arrests habitual bad check writers, but they sort of glazed over that part. When I was 22, I bounced a check, and I told my boyfriend I was terrified to go home because the sheriff might be waiting there to take me to jail. He said, "WHAT?" After I explained, he said, "Well, I hate to tell you this, but Santa Claus isn't real, either."

When I was small my brother and I were fighting over a single dollar bill my uncle had.
He took it and ripped it in half, then gave 1 half to each of us.
We tried to use it as actual currency/tried to tape it back together...

I used to believe that credit cards had an infinite amount of money on them, because whenever my mom didn’t have enough money, she would pull out a credit card. I thought she was such an idiot for not using it all the time.

I used to believe that checks were 'make your own money' paper so you could write down any amount on them and you would have that much money. When I was about 4 I took my mom's checkbook and made each check for a million dollars so I could buy myself everything I wanted.

Needless to say, I freaked out and I thought that we'd be in so much debt because she'd shredded the check after telling me checks took money out of her bank account.

When I was little I thought whenever cashiers gave you your change whenever you bought something, they were actually just giving you free money because they were just so grateful that you bought something from their store!

I used to think that when I would go to the bank that they would put my money in a shoebox in the safe and give me back my money when I came to withdraw. Boy was I upset when they gave me somebody else's money!

when I was a child whenever one of my brothers or I found a coin we had to go and show it to my dad. He told me that if I ever found a coin with the Princesses head on the back I could keep it, and if my brothers found one with the prince or king on the back they could keep it. He naturally got to keep any coin with the Queen's head on the back. I can't believe I fell for that one for so long- I think we ended up giving him a fair bit of money over the years.

Up until I was around 7 or 8, I believed that one day, without warning, my family would just lose all our money and become homeless. I kept a secret stash of tinfoil and anything spray-painted gold/silver so that we would have something to sell to pay for food, clothes, etc. when this happened. I believed that anything that LOOKED like silver and gold, must be silver and gold, and therefore must be valuable.