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I don't think you really need abstract representations to do basic budgeting. Adding and subtracting concrete quantities can get you pretty far.



When it comes to spending money on credit, you need an intuition for running sums. This lets you maintain an estimate in your head tracking how much you charged on the card.

People without that intuition are surprised at how fast the little charges added up to an unexpectedly large sum.

But I only spent a hundred here or there; how did it blow past $4700?


> But I only spent a hundred here or there; how did it blow past $4700?

This is basic human frailty and completely orthogonal to mathematical ability.




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