It would help if more vending machines took them. I get some from my bank whenever I go, because all of the vending machines in our cafeteria/break room take them. No more worries about trying to get those damn things to accept a beat-up dollar bill! And it’s a lot easier to carry a few dollars in change when you include some of these …
Personally, I would rather get five dollars in dollar coins from a change machine than five dollars in quarters. I hate walking around with a big wad of change in my pants. “Hey, is that five dollars worth of quarters in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?” The problem I have is that the change machines at work give out dollar coins, but half the vending machines won’t accept them. Ironically, I hear the vendo-guy complaining that people use the vending machines that DO take the dollar coins to make change into quarters so they can use them in other machines. Well, DUH! What are we supposed to do?
It is somewhat ironic that the primary reason I keep singles around now is to work in the vending machine…
But hey, people, I’m all for a debate on whether these things are good or not, but I think it would be nice to the OP if we not hijack this thread to have it here. 
Since it is payday and I haven’t cashed/deposited my check yet, I currently have nothing but ten one-dollar bills in my wallet. That’s enough for a sandwich at lunch and maybe a bucket of balls at the driving range later on. If not for the one-dollar bill, I’d either have no money on my person, or else I’d have ten big ol’ coins in my pocket weighing me down. (What am I supposed to do–get a change purse, for crying out loud?) When I leave the house in the morning, I take along my keys and my wallet. I don’t stop to fill my pockets with change, which presumably I’d have to do if we had nothing but Sackies as a one-dollar denomination. And when’s the last time you lost a dollar bill from your wallet in the couch cushions or in the seat of your car? Coins, though heavy and (to me) relatively cumbersome, get lost remarkably easily.
So I am very much pro-dollar-bill. There’s no need to badmouth the Sackie or anything; it’s nearly died off all on its own, thank you very much. I haven’t seen one in an ordinary transaction in months, in fact. (I know they’re not rare, and that I can get them at my bank, it’s just that I have no desire to do so.)
(And won’t someone please think of the strippers?!?!)
Yes, poor strippers. Their patrons would have to pay in fives. 
If I remember all the articles I’ve read on this issue correctly:
[list=1]
[li]The U.S. Treasury would like the dollar bill to disappear and be replaced by the Sackies.[/li][li]The U.S. Treasury would like the penny to disappear and have everything rounded to the nearest nickel.[/li][li]The U.S. Treasury doesn’t make law, it only implements, as best it can, law passed by Congress.[/li][li]Congress is a bunch of whiny, weak-kneed idiots when it comes to legislating ‘nuisance’ changes, regardless of how logical the change would be. (OK, this is more my opinion than fact).[/li]E.g., Congress backed off of truly mandating a change to metric – they only encourage it. :rolleyes:
[li]Congress refuses to fully implement the removal of the dollar bill and the penny because they’re afraid of public disapproval [/list=1] [/li]
If the Treasury had its way, and people spent their coinage wisely (i.e., not holding onto extraneous change), then the most a person would have in their pocket would be four sackies, three quarters, and either two dimes or a dime and a nickel – nine coins at most (usually less). This is the same number of coins for the current system with pennies.
Peace.
“From this coin, we can deduce that 21[sup]st[/sup] Americans worshipped an Indian mother-goddess.” -Dr. Zorbran, archeologist, 3415 AD.
But how many things can you buy with a dollar (or less). Your lunch will take about 4-6 of those singles, right? Why not carry 2 fives or 1 ten?
But yes, we must consider the stippers and exotic dancers.
Does anyone happen to know exactly how much money would saved by switching?
My instinct is that the amount of money involved is probably not worth the inconvenience of making people schlepp around those dollar coins.
Besides, we all know that a cashless society is coming. :eek:
Well, according to The Bureau of Engraving and Printing:
- The Bureau of Engraving and Printing produces 37 million notes a day
- 95% of the notes printed each year are used to replace notes already in circulation. 45% of the notes printed are $1 notes.
- According to the Federal Reserve System, the average life of a $1 bill is 22 months
- During Fiscal Year 1999, it cost approximately 4.2 cents per note to produce 11.3 billion U.S. paper currency notes.
So, each day the BEP spends about $700,000 to print $1 bills which will last 22 months.
I’m still looking for coin information.
The lady ahead of me in line at lunch yesterday dropped one; I picked it up and handed it to her and she said she didn’t even know how much it was worth. :rolleyes:
The United States Mint2000 annual report says that the cost of producing 1,019,000,000 Sackis in 2000 was $147,600,000. This would mean the average cost of a Sacky is 14.5 cents.
Coin specifications says the average coin lasts 30 years.
So, to make things equal, the US Mint can spend 14.5 cents to create one Sacky that lasts 30 years or the BEP can spend 4.2 cents 16.4 times over 30 years - at a cost of 68.7 cents (or 373.8 percent more) for the $1 bill.
Correct me if I make a bad assumption:
Plan A:
BEP continues to print about 16.6 million $1 bills each day for the next 30 years - at a cost of $7.6 billion. This would keep us in $1 bills for the next 30 years.
Plan B:
The US Mint produces 16.6 million Sackies each day for the next 22 months - at a cost of $1.6 billion. This would keep us in Sackies for the next 30 years.
While the difference won’t really be $6 billion (present value calculations not completed), I think there is a real savings.
The tooth fairy is bringing them to my daughter pretty regularly these days. Said daughter tells me she is tired of gold and wants diamonds next time.
(how did all this get started? most folks just get quarters)
Fin_man, your assumptions seem valid to me, but I think a more instructive number would be $200 Million per year.
I don’t carry coins because they make noise when I walk and fall out of my pockets when I sit (damn loose pockets on Dockers). I’d have to buy a change purse or something, and we all know how manly that is. I have some sackies but they suffered the same fate as my other coins. I take em out of my pockets when I get home, but don’t take them with me the next day when I leave. So now I try and spend them right away if I ever get them from the LIRR machines or the post office.
Although if they updated the coinstar machines to take them as well as other change then all would be fine, I could take my big bag of change grocery shopping with me when it gets full.
I spend mostly fives and tens, so I don’t think replacing the few one dollar bills I deal with at a time is really going to give me a hernia.
I see a lot of worries here about having so much change in the pocket. One of the thing that made the transfer from $1 bill to $1 coin in Canada easier was the fact that we had a regularly used $2 bill. Now we have a $2 coin instead.
Most guys still carry around the day’s accumulated change in their pockets and then dump it in a bucket when they get home. Having bigger change denominations just means that your change bucket builds up faster. I can remember my dad using the change bucket to take the family out to steak dinners (well, he’d roll the coins and take them to the bank, but it was still change bucket money). I can also attest to the fact that change loves to roll out of the pockets of Dockers and the like. I got a wallet with a zippered centre pocket and put my big change in there and don’t really worry if I lose a dime or two when I still down on the subway.
Cite?
The reason I ask is because your statement about lifespans of coins and bills is either over-generalized or just plain false. I’ve got a bill in my wallet from series 1995, and most are from series 1999.
Earlier I posted these cites.
The Bureau of Engraving and Printing says the average life of a $1 bill is 22 months
US Mint says the average coin lasts 30 years.
It’s in Fin_man’s first cite. It says 22 months there. I’ve also seen 18. But I’m willing to believe the BEP, and go with 22. The reason you see bills older than this is that they don’t spend all that time in circulation. They’re printed and stored for however many years before circulating and becoming useful.