Maria, a journalist with school-aged children, is able to deal with decimals in many situations by relating them to money. Maria does not realise that she has a problem. Her interpretation of money in terms of numbers of dollars and numbers of cents means that she does not appreciate the underlying structure of decimals. She disregards digits which lie outside her narrow field of vision; any digits past two decimal places. Money thinking appears to be the same as expert behaviour until long decimals are required.