Your 1st paragraph is how I use coins.
This brings up an interesting sitch: if you have lots of bills or coins, do you try to “consolidate” them into larger denominations?
That’s hardly a surprising result. Twenty percent of a twenty-five dollar meal is five dollars. So if you ask servers if they’d rather have just a five dollar bill or a five dollar bill plus some additional change, it’s obvious they’re going to want the higher amount of money.
Now if you asked those same servers if they’d rather have a five dollar bill or five dollars’ worth of coins, I’d bet you’d get a different answer.
Who are those nutcases?
I work in retail. We’re are HAPPY to have people pay in change. Well, OK, paying a $100 purchase in quarters would be over the top but honestly, merchants don’t have an issue with you using change as well as bills.
I take along a few quarters wherever I spend money to minimize the amount of change I get back, and use quarters at car washes. The other change goes into coin rolls for bank deposit.
Is “USAnians” a term that foreigners often use or just OP’s own term? Just wondering.
When I’m in the states, I pay all small things in cash, including coins if it makes sense. Merchant doesn’t like? No problem finding another merchant. I rarely use a credit card under $20. Except for things here like filling my transit card or a parking lot machine since they are so finicky about bills. And return a mother lode of coins as change.
Some banks won’t take rolled coins. My CU has a coin counting machine in the lobby that is free for account holders. Dump them all in and give the receipt to the teller.
As for the OP, I usually dump the coins in my pocketses into a plastic baggy for eventual deposit as noted above. I keep a stock of quarters in the car for any parking meters I may run into.
In no particular order
- Tip jars at coffee shops
- Laundry
- Parking meters, though these days more and more of them do accept debit/credit cards
- A penny and/or nickel here and there when paying cash for things, added to the total tendered in order to avoid getting more of the same.
There are many here who would like to see currency reform, but we invariably get shouted down.
As you may or may not know, there have been numerous unsuccessful attempts to introduce $1 coins in the USA.
Aside from that, the American coinage system hasn’t changed since decades ago when you could actually buy something substantial with a coin. At this point, any attempt at reform is probably more trouble than it’s worth, as more and more people, especially the ones most welcoming of [del]change[/del] progress, aren’t using cash much at all any more.
IMHO, I think it was the tipping thing where the OP ran into trouble. I think it’s rude to leave coins, and I think it looks cheap, like I couldn’t bother to just round to the next dollar. It may not actually add up that way, but that’s how it looks. When I tip, it’s either on a CC slip, or in whole bills. If a friend I was dining with left coins, I probably wouldn’t say anything, but would feel embarrassed on the inside, and maybe even suddenly worried that my friend has to pinch pennies and maybe we shouldn’t have gone out to eat.
Using coins in pretty much any other context is fine. Merchants have change drawers that are often short of certain coins, and they don’t have to carry it home.
The last dollar coin that had any minor success was the Eisenhower dollar, but only because it was the same approximate size as the old Morgan or Peace dollars, which were mostly silver. Since the Ikes were clad instead of silver, they weren’t all that popular and were only minted for seven years.
Strippers. Although, I find it rather difficult to get the change to stay in the g-string.
i took my jars full of change and bought a piggy bank.
You aren’t doing it right. Strippers have slots in the front and back that take change at least in the clubs I go to. The really good ones can even give back change on demand.
The trick is to give your steering wheel a slight leftward turn just before you reach the curb…
(Come on now, you know somebody had to do it.)
I’m from Australia and had the same issue when I recently visited the USA.
I think two things contributed … not being familiar with the coins/sizes meant it was hard to quickly reach for the right coins when paying and the odd taxes in some states which meant I had no idea what exact amount I would need when I purchased an item with a price on it.
If I am going to pay with cash here, I often will have the exact amount in my hand before I get to the register to pay. Who wants to hold up everyone counting out coins?!?! Not me!
I felt bad … but I ended up just dumping out my change in the USA as tips (making sure they added up to a large tip). Sorry if that wasn’t the right thing to do!
Bwuh?
Seriously, I have never met a waitperson who objected to coins in tipping. Sure, it’s nice to get a large tip in bills but seriously? I mean people seriously think leaving money in coin format is somehow offensive?
When did this start? I didn’t get the memo.
Oh, and for you people who proudly claim “I never pay cash anymore”… you DO realize that the company that owns the little machine that the merchant slides your card through takes a cut of every transaction, right? Especially American Express, they have the highest rates for that.
Typically, there is a base rate of $0.20 to $0.30 for EVERY transaction processed with a credit or debit card, 2-3% being not uncommon. This is why a lot of merchants don’t want you to use plastic under a certain amount. So if you pay for a $10 purchase with plastic the merchant is only getting $9.30 of it. He’s losing 7% of the transaction to someone else. But the merchant is still paying sales tax on $10. The lower you go the worse it gets. For a $5 purchase the merchant loses 9% of the transaction. For a $1 transaction (and I have seen people try to pay for a $1 with plastic) by the time the CC company and the sales tax kicks in the merchant gets only $0.40 out of the deal.
Particularly the small merchants would really, really prefer you pay with CASH because then then get the maximum amount of the transaction. Small merchants WANT YOUR COINS because of all the people who proudly don’t use coinage and pay only in bills, particularly larger bills, and therefore obligate the merchant to empty the change drawer.
Does that mean pay for a $12 purchase entirely in coins? No. But if you have a dollar’s worth of silver coins it’s fine to pay $11 in bills and $1 in coins. Bonus points if they’re counted out beforehand.
Perhaps the shop keepers were wanting to offer change, in order to increase the chance of getting a TIP.
See ? they were happy to take the big note, in the hope that when they offered $2.50 in coins, they’d get the coins as the tip.
They didn’t want the coins as payment, because that would leave little change (as coins.)
I save all my change in a big cup and each month when it gets full I take it to the machine in the grocery store that turns it into cash. Usually about $40 or $50 a month.