There are indeed. :}

That's the one thing that Mom and Dad never fussed at me for buying with my allowance. Buying books was ok with them.

Good for your parents. :}

If mom and I are at a bookstore, she'd get books and then allow me to get one or two
At one point we were at a friend of hers visiting and we went to barnes and noble and I ended up getting six books. Mostly by grabbing a few I wanted while she was distracted, then she said two more so I got two more. If I had remembered my wallet, I would've been able to get a lot more. Oh well
She knew about one, so she thought the goal was three until the others were pulled out of the basket
Oh, and a waving cat figurine. Battery powered. Dad thought it was broken at first cuz it was designed to not wave at random lengths, he thought it was supposed to be consistently one length for the waving
Mom heckled me on the one omnibus as a joke. The poor girl cashing us out thought mom was being serious XD
Thankfully mom didn't mind the extras, or the fact that I went "mom. Kitty. Get it."

I never got an allowance as a kid.

I both got a basic allowance (0,50-2€) when growing up, plus an earned allowance by doing small chores. By the time I was ten I told mom I no longer wanted it as I wanted to earn my own money. :}

I would not have turned down money. lol.
My family was really poor.

Accepting my allowance would not have made my family any richer. I stopped wanting it so that my mom could spend the money on food and bills.
Plus I was doing odd jobs all around the town, I had no money accepting money there. :}

Well my mom didn't put my needs and wants very high on the list of things to buy.
I got barely enough to survive and that was about it.
If I had an allowance then maybe I could have bought the occasional thing for myself.

Just realized that i wrote money instead of problem, in my previous post.
Yeah, I can see your point. My mom had us very high on her priority list. I can safely say, that although raised on welfare most of my life, me and my siblings were fairly spoiled in our needs. :}