LIkewise with the air machine at the gas station. Air costs $1.50 in cash but more like $3 or $4 with credit card fees.
I just walk in and ask them nicely to start it, and they always do. Of course, that is at gas stations where i have bought gas at one time.
In California, all gas stations are required by law to provide free air for your tires if you buy gas. I think that’s true in a few other states too.
Right.
I haven’t used 1c or 2c coins since Australia removed them from circulation in 1992. Our smallest coin is the 5c, and I have a couple of dozen of them in my little coin purse thing that I rarely use because I pay for almost everything with my debit card nowadays.
I put all other coins in the machines that top up my public transport card, but annoyingly they don’t accept 5c coins. I can’t find a coin exchange machine in a bank that’s anywhere near anywhere I’m likely to go, so I’m thinking I might try dumping them in the supermarket receptacle and paying the balance with my debit card whenever I remember to try that.
Yes it’s less than AU$2, but it’s the principle of the thing, I want my money’s worth from them before Australia finally does what New Zealand did in 2006 and makes the 10c the smallest coin.
I have a couple of small bags of 1c and 2c coins in a storage box, they’re still legal tender (all Australian decimal coins are) but I have no interest in exchanging them for usable money, they’re kind of nice keepsakes. But I really want to dispose of those 5 centses.
We have one yen coins which have a value of about 0.7 cents. I rarely use cash, and never carry any coins so I get change back. Eventually, I’ll get enough one yen coins to build a fortress.
Here in Chicago and its environs, it’s mostly a couple bucks to fill up air but there are a number of gas stations where it’s free. You just have to figure out where they are or there’s a website somewhere that tells you (though is not totally accurate.) I know the gas station on the west side of what was the Hinsdale Oasis, for example, is free. (Or at least was a year ago. The last time two times I filled my air was at an oil change and a tire change.)
The US has toyed with the idea of stopping production of our 1 cent coin for years - the cost to produce is more than it’s worth…
Yes, that’s what happened in Australia and New Zealand. I’d say our 5c will go sooner or later. Actually I’m a bit jealous of the Kiwis because they took the opportunity to redesign all their coins when they deleted their 5c. They’re a bit smaller than the old versions and they changed the composition to cheaper metals. They look good to me.
And every time the Feds do muse publicly about the idea of stopping penny production the Right-wing (RW) CT-onauts go absolutely apeshit.
If indeed the current crop of RW crazies in government can stand up to the RW crazies out of government, then maybe, just maybe, they’ll be able to do one useful thing during the life of their criminal regime. IMO killing all production and use of coins in the USA would be a darn good thing.
I think every yard sale and farm stand I have used priced things to avoid pennies. Usually the farm stands price veggies in 25 cent increments.
That’s usually true; but I also use cash for small payments at standard stores. The yard sale/small farm stand example was more along the lines of ‘people still use cash a lot around here, and are likely to carry some because some places still don’t take anything else’.
My wife is concerned. “So if the grocery store rounds UP to a nickel, who gets the extra money?” She doesn’t get it that you round to the nearest nickel, same as today you round to the nearest penny, not the NEXT penny.
Yeah, there’s a possibility that someone will round up to a nickel for you, then round to nearest when paying taxes. Small time, small gain to them, small loss to you. If the local Safeway Supermarket does that, they’ll get busted.
Actually, in my red corner of a blue state, more and more small business are charging a fee if you pay with credit because of the credit card fees. So, a lot of people in my town still carry a fair amount of cash so they can go to this diner or that garage or…
This:
I had not known about the 3c coin in 1889. Nor did I consider the ending of SBA dollars, which was an oversight on my part.
This is more or less what I do. If I’ve gotten some pennies as change from somewhere else, then when I go to the drive-thru at In-N-Out I will pay with exact change just to use them up. If I don’t have enough pennies to make exact change (Or at least make is so that I don’t get more coins as change) then I’ll just pay with a card.
I do still often pay with cash when I go to the farmers’ market. Many vendors take cards now, but they often charge an additional fee or require a minimum purchase, so I’ll use cash for small purchases there. But like @thorny_locust mentioned, it seems like most vendors just round their prices to the nearest $0.25, so coins smaller than a quarter don’t really come into play. I usually end up getting some quarters as change on one visit to the market, and then spend them on my next visit.
I round a lot of prices to .25, but I sometimes have small hot peppers for sale; most of them sell in mixed bags of various kinds of hot peppers generally for 1.50 or more depending on how large a bag I’m filling that week (which depends on the number and kind of hot peppers available); but a single one of the small varieties is sometimes 15¢.
Also sometimes people give me dimes or nickles, as well as occasionally pennies.
– I take cash, FMNP and FreshConnect coupons, checks (believe it or not), and occasionally barter. Some but not all the other vendors do take cards, maybe other techniques. I’m (so far) resisting taking anything that costs me money to take and/or requires taking multiple devices to market (my phone doesn’t do that sort of thing and the market location has no power source, so I’d have to haul along at least the iPad plus the phone for a hotspot.)
An aluminum fortress?
I take a few pennies, nickels and dimes with the aim of getting quarters. It was a vestige of needing them for laundry but today is just personal quirk.
I had always interpreted your username as “Jungle Massive”.
Now I find out it’s really “Jingle Massive” as in “Weighted down with scads of noisy coins.” Who knew? 