The entire EU eurozone manages to do it. There's a 1 Euro note, but I've never seen it and as far as I know nobody uses it. Using 1 and 2 euro coins works great. I personaly just keep them in my pocket. I don't think jingling is a real problem. Same goes for the UK and the pound. Nobody uses 1 pound notes.
Worth noting: the lack of tip culture in the EU as per the previous poster's example. A waiter being tipped 1$ coins each night would add up quickly.
It's common to tip a euro or two for your meal in Italy.
> Most soda machines are charging $0.60 or $0.65 these days. Rounding to either $0.50 or $0.75 would be annoying. The soda machines I see charge $1.25. Where are you?
Cans, not bottles
Sure, but there are no can-based soda vending machines around here.
We should get rid of everything below the quarter. All we need are some rules for rounding up (or down). Then we could also drop the $1 dollar bill for a coin. A lot less confusion with only two main coins in circulation.
We've had $1 coins for a hot minute. You can almost only ever find them at the bank, post offices, and some other government places (the Sound Transit ticket kiosks here in Seattle spit them out, I found out last week), but they exist. We also have/had a 50c coin, but it's huge and I believe out of circulation these days.
The genius it took to design a $1 that was basically indistinguishable from a quarter...
So get rid of them. At one point in my life, a long time ago, things could be purchased for a penny. That time has long passed. Now pennies are used just to make the math work out. Round everything up a nickel ($0.05) and call it a day. Or look at it another way: inflation has made the nickel from my youth into today's penny.
> Round everything up a nickel ($0.05) and call it a day. This already happens at convenience stores around the country, too. The "pennies for everybody" trays are the physical manifestations of our collective irritation with the penny. I know I only ever get change back rounded to the nearest 0.05 because I always leave my pennies in the tray. And since I often never have pennies, I'm only prepared to make transacti…
yep i mean not even just the trays but a good %age of small local businesses (ie basically everywhere where employees feel like they have the latitude) will chop the pennies off the price in the name of sanity. so literally everyone involved hates pennies so much that they will willingly give them away. better keep minting them at all cost (literally)?
ahh maybe it’s just a way to keep prices “fair” for cash users, since businesses have to pay interchange on card transactions but charge everyone the same price? (/s)
So get rid of them. At one point in my life, a long time ago, things could be purchased for a penny. That time has long passed. Now pennies are used just to make the math work out. Round everything up a nickel ($0.05) and call it a day. Or look at it another way: inflation has made the nickel from my youth into today's penny.
That's what Australia did ~2 decades ago. There used to be 1 and 2c coins; they were seen as useless, so they were axed. All prices are rounded up to the nearest 5c.
Rounded to the nearest 5c, not rounded up to the nearest 5c. Also, that is only for cash payments, electronic payments are not rounded.
Personally, I'd like to get rid of all coins, and introduce a $0.25 note and call it a day. Round all cash payments up to the next quarter and no more metal money. Egypt has a 0.25 Egyptian Pound note. The last time I was there it was only worth about US$0.06.
This. Though there is already a $0
.25 coin... Called a quarter.
So get rid of them. At one point in my life, a long time ago, things could be purchased for a penny. That time has long passed. Now pennies are used just to make the math work out. Round everything up a nickel ($0.05) and call it a day. Or look at it another way: inflation has made the nickel from my youth into today's penny.
> At one point in my life, a long time ago, things could be purchased for a penny.
When I visit America, pennis are the most useless thing to carry out. All they do is add tons of weight and bulk in change without providing any utility.
The value of pennies to the economy must be much greater than $69M right? My reasoning is: if you get rid of them, who’ll get short changed? The consumer. And by how much throughout the entire cash economy? A lot.
I think the value of pennies to the economy is negative. Every time I have to handle a penny it wastes my time and energy for no gain. I never find having a penny useful unless it will prevent me from getting more pennies. Multiply that by everyone in the country and that is quite a waste of time (i.e. money). There would be almost no loss of economic efficiency if we get rid of pennies but a nice savings in real tim…
Why don't you just do what I do: when you buy something in-person with cash and there's change, count the paper money and then just hastily count out the change, knowingly giving more then the exact cent amount, and say "Keep the change, and no need for the receipt." Precious seconds can be saved every time. Also, if I'm in line behind someone who is taking too long with anything up to 2 dollars, I just say "I'll pay it" or I even quickly hand the cashier the money.