Fee Creep, High Interest Rates at the Bank of Dad

When my cousin Marc and his sister started receiving allowances as kids, my aunt and uncle gave the practice a novel twist: They indexed the allowance to the price of ice cream at Baskin-Robbins.

The late 1970s was, if nothing else, a productive time to teach kids about prices. The average U.S. monthly inflation rates in 1979 and 1980 were 11.3 percent and 13.5 percent, respectively. Ice cream-pegged allowances rose by the scoop.