I won’t say I’m perfect about it, but if I know I’m going to be counting out a lot of coins, I try to pull up the calculator app on my phone to figure the total so I can have it ready before I get to the cashier. They still manage to throw me off by a penny, from time to time, however, because I never know whether they round the tax to the nearest cent or just round everything up to the next cent. Just the other day, I had my $11.59 all ready for an item priced at $10.99 (5.5% tax), only to be told I owed $11.60. Sometimes, I don’t have it ready, simply because I forgot that the item was subject to tax (or forgot that it was subject to 8% instead of 5.5%).
Why, oh why, can’t we just have the grand total price on the tag to begin with? It’s not like the taxes and bottle deposits and the like are optional.
That’s quite a bit different than kvetching about being offered a $2 bill or a 50¢ piece when you’re owed $2 or 50¢ in change. I’m guessing SeaDragonTattoo works in a sea of dumbassery, if people think they’re getting stiffed on their change because of perfectly legit U.S. money being used exactly as it was intended to be used.
This probably won’t hold as many coins as you carry. You’ll know empirically soon enough. You may want to order a second one, perhaps of a different style, so you can use one for 50 cent and dollar coins, and another for smaller coins, and tell one from the other by feel.
I use something like this plastic coin purse. I got a few of them cheaper at my local hardware store, or on sale online, I forget which.
Besides the coin purse keeping the coins at hand, the purse keeps the coins from falling out of my pocket, or jingling when I walk.
My coin purse was very useful in Canada, where I could grab a loonie or a twoonie quickly, and not bother with my wallet except for large purchases.
I wish we in the US weren’t as emotionally attached to our currency and coinage. We could really use a dollar coin. I often find 1965 quarters in circulation. It’s very hard to find a bill note older than the 1990s.
You are not correct. My primary cashiering experience has been in upscale stores in highly affluent and educated areas. I learned quickly that giving out some odd denomination as change resulted in questions and negative reactions from my customers. While my customers usually knew that they were receiving legal tender of the appropriate value, they strongly preferred to receive change in standard denominations. In SeaDragonTattoo’s experience, trying to give non-standard denominations as change could have even worse results. A competent cashier will strive to minimize unnecessary questions and negative reactions from customers. It’s just bad service to annoy customers when you can easily avoid doing so.
Why do customers want standard denominations for change? Convenience and simplicity. Who wants to try to find an opportunity to foist that 50 cent piece off on another cashier? Getting two quarters means a. no questions or annoyance when trying to spend them, and b. they’re usable in parking meters, laundry and vending machines, etc. Getting dollar bills instead of coins as change means that when you give that money to your kid for lunch, he won’t annoy the lunch lady simply by paying with unusual money.
I think the vastest majority of us are not looking for entertainment value from their currency, and understand that cashiers are simply looking to do their jobs quickly, with a minimum of aggravation, and most importantly, ACCURATELY.
Your little games may be fun for you, but they’re most assuredly not fun for anybody else. It is your right to pay with any legal U.S. tender you want, but please do so with the knowledge that a. You ARE annoying people, and b. the cashiers who are NOT giving out the odd denominations as change have reasons that are a lot more logical than your reasons for paying with it.
The OP is talking about carrying 87 coins. And heavily biased towards the largest quantities of the physically largest coins. :eek: That takes some “special” dedication.
My original advice about a wheeled briefcase still stands. Then the OP can take especial gratification from the fact his wallet is bigger than anyone else’s, even Bill Gates’ or Il Trumpo’s.
It arrived yesterday. It is a neat design, and well made, but it doesn’t really go that well with more than three or four half dollars. I suppose it’s back to the drawing board. Although I do have a relative who likes things like this, so I think I’ll save it for a Christmas gift.
Aren’t you Mr. Wet Blanket. FYI, there are four common reactions I’ve noted so far when spending “unusuals” (and dollar coins are not “unusual” up here; almost all of the vending machines accept them and dispense them as change. I’ve even seen a few that claim to accept twos): #1: indifference, #2: “Oh, it’s been a while since I’ve seen one of those,” #3: they get all excited and buy them out of the till for their own collection, and #4 (exclusively for $2 bills): “Have you been to the strip club?”:eek:
What part of the country did you cashier in? Given how common it is to receive foreign currency in your change up here, I don’t think most people up here would care what they get for change, as long as it is correct. The local movie theater gives out 50¢ coins in their change; I’ve never seen anyone complain or look annoyed about it. I routinely spend twos and halves at yard sales during the summer, as well, and without issue. So either you’re over-estimating people’s levels of annoyance, or you live in a different cultural area than I do.
Why lug all that around? I mean, if you have 34 large coins totaling $43.50, why not exchange them for two $20 bills and two quarters?
Then we’re talking 9 quarters, 2 dimes, 4 nickels and 10 pennies. Which is still a pretty full pocket of change, but at least manageable. Certainly not nearly a full pound worth of change anyway.
No. Don’t be *that *guy. Nobody appreciates having to count their earnings in pennies. And tipped employees enjoy carrying around loads of change about as much as you do but considerably less than the OP does.
You can doubt it all you like, but you’d be wrong. You might be surprised how many people think the cashier is trying to pull one over on them when they are handed atypical denominations to what they normally expect. It’s not worth trying to figure out which customers are not going to reject perfectly good currency because they’re not used to seeing it. Maybe if you $2 bill and $1 coin lovers would wear something indicating you like unusual change.
But it shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone who frequents this board that *humanity *is a sea of dumbassery. And cashiers get to see a lot of it.
Aye, I’ll admit I do rather like the jingling of pocket change. Or at least, I don’t see it as quite the big deal that some folks on here make it out to be. I was just looking for a quicker, easier way to count it out than fishing a fistful out of my pocket at a time. Although I’m still quicker paying with a mix of bills and coins than most people are with credit and debit cards (admittedly, in part, because Internet is still pretty slow in Maine in most places; there are some card readers around here that still use a dial-up modem).
As far as dumping them into tip jars, I suspect the reason for the jar’s existence in the first place is because they’re hoping that customers will simply dump their unwanted change in the jar. Pocket change does add up over time, and a $1 tip in pennies is still better than no tip at all.
I think you all might be surprised at how many people don’t have any issues at all with them, since, you know, y’all gave up trying, as much as 20-some years ago (and the amount of twos in circulation has actually more than doubled since 1996, so if anything, people have become more willing to use them than they were 20 years ago).
Wouldn’t do me much good. Since I generally have whatever I need to pay for items within 50¢ of the total, I rarely get anything larger than a quarter back as change.
On that last point, you’ll get no disagreement. People are idiots and assholes. I still question the validity of saying “99%” refuse these denominations. There are a significant number of folks that love the denominations, oftentimes because they collect them (as I do, I just get them from the bank and search them instead of waiting for them to pop up in my change), and they alone reduce that number to far below 99%.
It’s been a few years since my last yard sale, and it’s probably time to start ridding myself of some ju—I mean treasures that I’ve been accumulating. So perhaps I’ll have to measure people’s reactions myself when the weather warms up a bit.
Better for whom? Let me fill you in on those jars. None say, “Dump your spare change here.” Those tip jars are communal meaning the tips are shared equitably amongst the staff. Which means someone has to count, roll, sort, and change for bills at the bank. That staff member is paid for doing so, but is not assisting customers and their labor is included in the budget. More coins means less staff hours available to assist customers. It often meant 30-45 minutes in the back and if it got busy, you can’t exactly leave a pile of money on the desk unattended. The people I worked with hated coins and wanted to get their tips in bills and as few coins as necessary. Usually the people tipping with loose change were tipping less than 10% anyway. It was actually pretty rare to see someone dump in $1 worth of pennies, though.
So while yes, tipping is better than not tipping, don’t pat yourself on the back and I would ask yourself: Would you feel as comfortable leaving a pile of small coins on your table for your waitress in a sit-down restaurant? How about an upscale restaurant? Is there a threshold for when the size of the pile of coins becomes jerkish? If so, why? If a $1 tip in pennies is better than no tip at all, isn’t a $5 tip in pennies also better than no tip at all? How about a $20 tip in quarters (which are far more useful than pennies)?
Take that up with the fellow who was throwing his pennies in them, then. A dollar in pennies is better than no dollar, in my opinion. Of course they’d prefer bills. I’d prefer them, as well—preferably the ones with the number 100 on the corners and the mugshot of Ben Franklin.
I wouldn’t ordinarily leave pennies for a waitress, because the penny has traditionally been used as a gesture of saying, “I didn’t forget the tip, you just suck at your job.” It has been æons since I’ve actually received service in a restaurant bad enough to justify that kind of gesture.
But tip jars are a different animal altogether. Especially since the people who have them out around here seem to be the folks who do not customarily work for tips.
I have more fun with my pennies. A park I frequent is a favorite of detectorists. To give them a momentary thrill I toss my pennies around in the grass…
I’m going to go out on a limb here and suggest that coastal Maine is probably a hotbed of contrariwise anachronistic folks. Not so much a place full of impatient 20-somethings wielding their ApplePay on their new iThingy with a practiced ironic nonchalance and sub-millisecond speed.
It’s definitely a slower pace of life then in the cities, for sure, especially when you figure the nearest one from where I am is 40miles away, and the largest of our cities (100 miles from my home) has a population of just over 60,000, last I knew. A lot of old hippies up here, too, so most folks are quite mellow. Maine also has the designation of having the oldest population, and many people mellow out with age.
I was just looking for a quicker, easier way to count it out than fishing a fistful out of my pocket at a time. Although I’m still quicker paying with a mix of bills and coins than most people are with credit and debit cards (admittedly, in part, because Internet is still pretty slow in Maine in most places; there are some card readers around here that still use a dial-up modem).
Stuff doesn’t always come out in writing the way it would in a face-to-face conversation, so I didn’t feel you were being all that harsh.