The iPod & iTunes Pocket Guide, Second Edition

Chapter 7: Tips and Tricks 195

Make Allowances

If you’re like a lot of iTunes Store customers, you

occasionally bust your budget and purchase more

music than you should. To help you keep your

spending in check, let me show you how to give

yourself an iTunes allowance.

As I mentioned in Chapter 4, the iTunes Store allows

you to give other users a music allowance—in

amounts from $10 to $200—that renews automati-

cally each month. Regrettably, Apple forbids you to

create an allowance for the account you’ve logged

in with.

The trick, therefore, is to create an second Apple ID

that confers an allowance on your original ID.

It works this way:

Launch iTunes, and travel to the iTunes Store via

the iTunes Store link. If you’re signed into The Store,

choose Store > Sign Out. Then choose Store > Sign

In (or click the Sign In button in the top-right corner

of the iTunes window). In the window that appears,

click Create New Account.

In the window that appears next, agree to the

license agreement (if you don’t, everything stops

here), and create a new account on the Step 2 of

3 page. To do so, you need an email address other

than the one you used to create your original Apple

ID; Apple tracks its users by email address. On the

next page, enter your credit-card information, and

complete the process.

The iPod & iTunes Pocket Guide196

note

You can create up to fi ve Apple IDs with a single credit-

card number. Your request to create a sixth account tied

to a particular credit-card account will be denied.

After you’ve signed in with the new account, click the

Allowance link on The Store’s main page. Navigate

through the allowance-creation screens, and enter

your original Apple ID as the recipient of the allow-

ance. You’ll have the option to start an allowance

right now or to have the allowance kick in at the

beginning of the next month.

The last step, of course, requires a measure of self-

control. When you’ve used up your monthly allow-

ance, stop buying music!