Long ago I cashiered in a grocery store for a while. It used to be that we got delivered mainly coins and small bills ($1 and $5 mostly) and deposited a much greater amount of money in the form of $10’s and up.
Last week, while waiting idly in line, I started keeping track of how people were paying in my line and the ones on either side. Out of 14 transactions, only one woman paid by cash (and that was for a very small purchase, less then $10. All the rest were either checks or credit/debit cards. And roughly 1/3 of the credit/debit card people asked for extra cash back.
Which made me wonder – does the average grocery store give out more cash than it takes in these days?
I don’t know how many stores do, but mine cashes paychecks, and everyone seems to have government assistance thesedays too. So I say yes, most definitely.
erm… no? unless i’m misreading the question… how would grocery stores stay open w/a negative outflow of cash? and if the OP was just talking about paper/coin money, then they must replenish that cash they’re giving out somehow, or they’d run out of change.
Simple - they withdraw money from their account every morning to make a float (the disparity of cash is more than made up for by them depositing checks and credit card transactions). It’s advantageous for the store to do this, because the possibility of someone buying something from the store to get cash back will outlay any inconvenience.
The OP meant “cash” as opposed to credit card charges and personal cheques. In the US you can write a cheque or charge a credit card for more than the purchase total and get change in cash. I don’t know if this is a common practice outside the US though - it definitely isn’t in my country.
It’s also terribly common in Australia, where we call it “cash out”. People use cash out at supermarkets to avoid ATM fees.
As in the UK – the US appears to be a bit of an anomaly – next to no-one uses personal cheques for their shopping.
Incidentally, the practice of allowing customers to take cash out allows a flow-on security benefit to supermarkets. The amount of cash they have on the premises at the end of the day is reduced, which is a decent security measure.
It’s not just grocery stores that are doing this. It seems that most stores that accept debit cards allow you to get cash back. Even the USPS will give cash back from a debit card. I take advantage of this to avoid the $2+ ATM fees. Add up those $2 fees for a year and the total is shocking. Use the store.
I wouln’t think so. Don’t they have a huge amount of cash on hand at the beginning of the day? Now mostly $10s and $20s for cash back instead of $1s for change? Any store managers out there want the weigh in on this?
My guess is it only takes a few people making a large purchase in cash to put enough in the till for quite a few that want 5 or 10 bucks out of their check.
Don’t any of you know where your own bank’s ATM’s are? Or are there some crazy banks out there that actually charge you to use their own ATMs? I’ve only paid one or two ATM fees in my life, when I happened to be in a city/town that didn’t have a branch of my bank.
I know perfectly well where my own bank’s ATMs are, but unfortunately there aren’t any conveniently near where I live, or conveniently along the route to work. (If I’m going downtown, on the other hand…)
In Toronto, just about everyone charges $1.50 for different-bank users to use their ATMs. I get a set number of ATM uses per month, plus purchases; If I can roll a withdrawl into a purchase, so much the better.
The gorcery store near where I live this month stopped accepting cheques. I suspect the number of people paying by cash roughly balances the number of people making cashback debit transactions, and most of the rest are using debit cards without cashback. (Does anyone use a credit card to buy food? That’s pretty uncommon in Canada, I think; I seem to remember that food stores weren’t allowed to accept credit cards until relatively recently, but I might be making that up…)
There are 2 ATMs in Poolesville and neither of them belong to my bank. It’s a 20-30 minute drive to my banks ATM. I know, change banks. Too many automatic deposits and withdrawals to my account. Easy banking has made changing banks a pain in the butt.
Can I say butt in GQ?
Yeah; I do (in the USA). It’s a big convenience. I never have to worry about balancing any type of bank accounts except once per month when I do my bill paying with Quicken. Using a credit card means never having to worry about how much money is available – unless you’re irresponsible and always close to the limit, or have a really large, unplanned purchase on it (used car or plasma TV or whatever, which I don’t do). Oh, plus the airline miles rack up really, really quickly.
In the USA I think old people are stupid or afraid or something (yeah, gross generalization, I know, I know). They insist on writing checks in the express lane for their measly $11 purchase. If they have a checking account, they have a debit or ATM card somewhere. On the other hand, I’ve overheard people criticising people like me for whipping out the card on a $2.00 purchase and not having emergency cash ($2 isn’t an emergency in my mind). It’s disappointing how many places don’t take plastic; they generally just don’t get my business, since my only cash is bottle-deposit return money that I save for coffee at work (no credit cards accepted by the guys on the floor, you see). Recently I discovered that Taco Bell here accepts credit cards – maybe I’ll have to start eating there more until Wendy’s gets on board. I know the Burger Kings in Glenn Ellyn, Chicago take (or took) credit cards.
I can’t say for sure now, but two years ago when I managed a grocery store we did NOT have a larger outflow of cash than was coming in.
For example, on a typical day, we might have a total deposit (of anything bigger than a $20) of $15,000. We never would order in more than a single day supply of cash and it was rare to order more than $5,000 (Which would be for a busy day).
While many people pay by debit and get cash back, many still pay with cash. I can’t remember the percentages but will try to find out today and post again. You’ve got to remember that there are a lot of people out there who don’t even have bank accounts.
I have a credit card that allows me to earn perks after a certain dollar amount so I use it for pretty much everything. (Amazon card; after a certain amount they send me a $25 Amazon gift certificate.)
You can use a credit card or ATM card at the same little machine when you checkout, but for some reason there’s a 25 cent surcharge for using the debit card, none for the credit card. (Not sure if this charge comes from the store, the bank or maybe the state?)
As for taking in less cash and where the outgoing cash comes from: Don’t forget a lot of stores have stuff like Coinstar change collecting machines, stamp machines, soda machines, lottery ticket machines, etc. While those are primarily small-change/single dollar transactions it does keep down the amount of hard cash they have to have sent from the bank daily.
As I understand it the shop ischarged by the bank when it accepts payment with a debit card. Which is why in UK many shops dont like purchases of less than £5 with debit cards.