A few weeks ago, I got a $2 bill in change at the local grocer. I was told by an elderly relative of mine that I should not spend it, and if I needed to spend it, she’d hand me a couple of singles so she could keep it.
Why shouldn’t I spend it? Isn’t being spent its raison d’être?
If you get a $2 bill, will you spend it or sock it away?
By the way, I did let her have the $2 bill.
There used to be a number of superstitions surrounding $2 bills.
Also, some people just thought they were general bad luck. One way to ward off the bad juju was to tear a small bit of the corner off, forming a tiny triangle, before you spent the bills. Which means whoever got the bill after the 4th corner was torn was out of (good) luck or something.
Not surprised it was an elderly relative - most of the superstitions have died out because you hardly ever see $2 bills anymore.
All those people should just go to Zimbabwe. US currency is in standard use there, and they seem to get shipments of to-be-destroyed bills. Among the nearly unreadable faded and torn notes circulating there are countless two dollar bills, as common as twenties are here.
They’re just a curiosity, they’re not rare. According to Wiki they were printed regularly up until 1966, then again in 1976 as both a cost saving measure and to celebrate the US Bicentennial. They were also printed again in the 90s:
In 1996 and 1997, 153,600,000 bills were printed as Series 1995 for the Federal Reserve District of Atlanta. In 2004, 121,600,000 of the Series 2003 bills were printed for the Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank. An issue of Series 2003A $2 bills was printed from July to September 2006 for all 12 Federal Reserve Banks. In all, 220,800,000 notes were printed.
Those of us (barely) old enough to remember when a dollar was a lot of money to a little kid might remember relatives who would get one from the bank to include in a birthday card or something…
I underlined the part I question; the rest is close enough for purposes of the Dope.
I very much doubt it. No matter how worn out a US note is, its still a legal US note and the Fed isn’t going to ship to-be-destroyed notes anywhere unless something really funky slipped through in the last year. Zimbabwe de-monerterized <sic?> all if its notes due to the rampant inflation they have suffered and legalized the use of notes from the US and other countries. But called the US Federal Reserve and asked for some scrap-paper-money? I would need to see the act authorizing it first.
No doubt they are getting US money but its just regular circulating notes. Any funky nature would be due to them getting it through secondary markets like some hoard of US dollars in Europe or the like or from “black market” reserves.
I save them because you never really see them. Same thing with the dollar coins when they were still in circulation.
Apparently they come form bulk resellers- not directly from the Fed, of course. All I know is that they are extremely worn, to the point of being threadbare and unreadable, and two dollar bills are an everyday thing. Not the cream of the crop USD, even before they end up worn from constant circulation and not having a mechanism for being pulled for destruction.
I saved my first two dollar bill there, but quickly ended up with a wallet full.
Dollar coins are still in circulation around here. I get them as change any time I use a $5 bill in the vending machines at work. I routinely get the Sacajawea dollars and presidential dollars from them, and every so often (probably about 15% of the time) get a Susan B. Anthony dollar in the mix.
Spend it, of course.
Right. The only reason both the two-dollar bill and the dollar coin are seen less is because merchants won’t keep them in their cash registers. They don’t have a slot in the tray for them; instead, they turn them over to the manager, and, of course, they can’t pass them on as change.
But vending machines don’t have this issue, so that’s what keeps the dollar coins, at least, in circulation.
i once won a free beer for having a $2 bill.
I would give it to my granddaughter to spend , I don’t think she seen a $2 bill before and I haven’t gotten one in years.
My brother got a bundle from the bank when his kids were little, and that was their Tooth Fairy money.
You got me curious enough that I’m going to have to investigate further. I know a couple Pastors there who have been sending me trillions and billions of their dollars for some of the stuff I ship them.
I suspect that the really worn stuff is coming from the grey and/or black markets; especially Eastern Europe. Lower denominations were the gift of choice for sneaking in to relatives back during the 70s; a lot probably ended up warehoused here and there as a lot of those businesses went legit. Or at least semi legit and using much larger notes for the other parts. 
Most has to be coming from outside the US though. There just wouldn’t be much of a profit for anyone in this country to bulk-ship it out. And to be frank, their economy is in such a mess that using it as some sort of money-laundering scheme for US criminals doesn’t make much sense either. But I could just have too honest of a nature to be 100% sure of that.
Outside of the immediate border with South African border, dollar bills are the primary currency. It’s what you get at ATMs and how stuff is priced in shops.
A huge issue is that coins are extremely rare, with just a trickle coming in from South Africa. Since a dollar is quite a bit of money, not having change is a huge burden on everyone. Small merchants carry candy, pencils, loose cigarettes and other small items to make change. Larger stores will offer their own scrip. But all in all its really obnoxious, because every penny really counts to people.
I don’t see the point of saving them. I usually take them to the bank and deposit them. I also hate to be the person who spends two dollar bills at the store.
For $1 coins, at least, it’s just because they can’t give the change in bills. If they don’t have any dollar coins, they’ll give you four quarters per dollar.
I used to take advantage of this in college, using a vending machine in a certain building to get change. It sucked when someone had actually gotten some dollars coins into the mix.
A friend of mine gets hundreds of dollars worth of $2 bills every month. He uses them to tip. He insists that it ensures he gets good service, and that wait staff remembers him (yeah, as “that joker with the $2 bills!”)
Funny enough, I’ve heard that at some strip clubs when you ask for change they’ll give it to you in $2 bills so that’s what you’re left with for tipping instead of tipping the dancers with singles.
Is it easy to get lots of $2-bills at a bank? I’d take a lot if going to Cambodia. Cambodians seem delighted to get them as tips, perhaps as much as getting three $1-bills! 