Bagging up loose change

[Hot Flatus]

I'd never thought about it before, but it's quite clever how 100 1p coins weigh the same as 50 2p coins etc....

Funnily enough a 2p coin weighs 1/4 ounce and a penny weighs a henry.

[Kim]

When Waitrose give you a token to put in a charity box I keep that and bin it as well, if I don't agree with any of the charities, which I usually don't.

On the rare occasion I go to Waitrose (primarily to stock up on their unscented handwash and shower gel), I put the token in whichever charity box has the least tokens.  I find the popularity contest aspect distasteful.

As for loose change, like Ruthie I tend to spend mine, but I can't keep up with the rate at which barakta (who doesn't have the dexterity to count out coins while holding up a shop queue) generates it - although the rise of contactless payment has greatly helped with that.  It gets sorted into jars and occasionally raided for things like exact bus fares, but some really needs to go to a bank.

[ian]

My wife is one of those awful use-the-right-change people that's always in front of you in the queue when you need to run to get a train etc. Carefully calculating the payment to the exact penny. It's worse in the US because nothing costs what it says on the price tag because of the bloody practice of adding the sales tax at the till and she doesn't understand their money so has to hold up each coin for me and how much is this one worth? Jesus woman, it was a dime when you last thrust it in my face two coins ago, it's still worth 10c now, and there are people in the queue behind us with guns.

At which point she starts asking them.

[Ham]

When Waitrose give you a token to put in a charity box I keep that and bin it as well, if I don't agree with any of the charities, which I usually don't.

On the rare occasion I go to Waitrose (primarily to stock up on their unscented handwash and shower gel), I put the token in whichever charity box has the least tokens.  I find the popularity contest aspect distasteful.

FWIW, the Waitrose scheme only decides which of the local causes receives the fixed amount (I think it is £1,000, but that may vary). As they are local organisations to the shoppers, and rarely the populist big money charities, I think that makes perfect sense and deserves encouragement, although I rarely bother as I  rarely have any preference. you don't have to do anything, it makes no difference to the size of the pot.

So, sorry BenT, your views are always ....interesting, but all you do by binning the disc is to throw away a piece of reusable plastic.

[rr]

When I was a PSO, in the days before £1 coins and 20p coins; and before the coins were downsized, I was involved in counting a £1500 rag collection, of which £32 was in notes. We counted each collecting tin (max around£30 iirc). And bagged and banked it all.
I seem to remember that £700 was 10p coins, I certainly made a trip to the bank with a nightsafe bag containing £200 in 10p in coins in either hand.


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[Wascally Weasel]

I bung all of my change into a repurposed whisky tin when I get home - sometimes there's nothing, sometimes just a few pence, sometimes nearly a fiver.

Once it's full or I'm skint I take it to the Metro Bank and cash it in - they've got coin counting machines and don't charge you anything to use them and you don't need to be an account holder (they have the option to make a donation for charity).

[Mr Larrington]

I don't understand USAnian coins either, though the soft drinks machine in the Battle Mountain Civic Center will make a disapproving noise if you put the wrong ones in.

[Ben T]

When Waitrose give you a token to put in a charity box I keep that and bin it as well, if I don't agree with any of the charities, which I usually don't.

On the rare occasion I go to Waitrose (primarily to stock up on their unscented handwash and shower gel), I put the token in whichever charity box has the least tokens.  I find the popularity contest aspect distasteful.

FWIW, the Waitrose scheme only decides which of the local causes receives the fixed amount (I think it is £1,000, but that may vary). As they are local organisations to the shoppers, and rarely the populist big money charities, I think that makes perfect sense and deserves encouragement, although I rarely bother as I  rarely have any preference. you don't have to do anything, it makes no difference to the size of the pot.

So, sorry BenT, your views are always ....interesting, but all you do by binning the disc is to throw away a piece of reusable plastic.

I know, but I don't want to favour one over the other. I suppose I could give it to the one with least in but that still endorses that one.

[CrinklyLion]

Or just leave it on the till?

[ian]

I don't understand USAnian coins either, though the soft drinks machine in the Battle Mountain Civic Center will make a disapproving noise if you put the wrong ones in.

I don't understand US notes but that's an entire different story, but I find the coins straightforward: pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters. Fifty cent pieces and dollar coins I don't often see these days. I'm not sure why they call 1c coins 'pennies' and I doubt they are either. They're not very exciting though, we like to make pretty pictures with ours, there's are just, well. Hey, look it's a picture of that damn bird again and it's only a matter of time before Trump legalises the hunting of eagles by rich people. Something has to be more exciting than golf (tbh, everything is more exciting than golf).

Dollar bills, I hate, horrid confusing scraggly things that seem invented so demented Americans can thrust them into other people's grubby paws in their pursuit of tipping for every mundane service. That and negotiating with vending machines. Note goes in, note comes out. Admittedly, US vending machines are better with notes than ours, which simply reject notes because they don't like the weather.

[Mr Larrington]

I have read elsewhere USAnians attempting to take the piss out of their northern neighbours because "you've got colored¹ money ha ha ha".  I believe the polite Canuckistani response is "At least they're not the colour of mould, and they don't need ironing".  The less-polite one can safely be left as an exercise for the reader's imagination.

1:sic

[Ben T]

I don't understand USAnian coins either, though the soft drinks machine in the Battle Mountain Civic Center will make a disapproving noise if you put the wrong ones in.

I don't understand US notes but that's an entire different story, but I find the coins straightforward: pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters. Fifty cent pieces and dollar coins I don't often see these days. I'm not sure why they call 1c coins 'pennies' and I doubt they are either. They're not very exciting though, we like to make pretty pictures with ours, there's are just, well. Hey, look it's a picture of that damn bird again and it's only a matter of time before Trump legalises the hunting of eagles by rich people. Something has to be more exciting than golf (tbh, everything is more exciting than golf).

Dollar bills, I hate, horrid confusing scraggly things that seem invented so demented Americans can thrust them into other people's grubby paws in their pursuit of tipping for every mundane service. That and negotiating with vending machines. Note goes in, note comes out. Admittedly, US vending machines are better with notes than ours, which simply reject notes because they don't like the weather.

Yes but you do get the advantage that you rarely have to deal with coins at all. Very few blokes' wallets are designed to deal with coins, and even then none do so well - they always either fall out or get stuck in the corners or are impossible to get out without tipping them which invariably tips everything else out. Those semicircular ones that old folk keep in the pocket of their beige flannel trousers are the best but they don't hold anything else.
Change is something it's too much faff to bother with and it's too much faff investing in a system to cope with it efficiently.

So if you have to buy something in cash in the UK, the difference between its value and that rounded up to the next fiver is basically a write off. In the US, you're only writing off the difference between its value and the nearest dollar, which is much more economical. I do also like how american notes are all the same size, and less tall than british notes, £20s particularly are far too tall.

[bobb]

I think it's about time we just got rid of 1p, 2p and even 5p coins. Other countries have done it and nobody cares. It all evens out in the end.

I don't know anything about the retail industry, so maybe somebody who does could explain the ridiculous pricing of goods. I mean - if something is £19.99 do they really think I'm not going to buy it if it's a nice, round £20?

Here's an example Gibson 335 for £3,092.96 FFS. just call it £3,100. If I'm going to spunk 3 large on a guitar, do I really care?

Why do they do that?

[SteveC]

Two 'traditional' answers.

1) It does make things sound cheaper, no matter how silly that is when you actually think about it.
2) It makes whoever is serving you actually open the till. The opportunities for pocketing the note are thus much reduced.

Both are largely outdated. 2 by technology and 1 by decimalisation 39/6 being nowhere near £2.

[phantasmagoriana]

I tend to chuck anything less than a quid in the bin.

Whereas I'll stop to pick up a penny in the street!

[Cudzoziemiec]

Whenever I'm in Waitrose, I try to stuff as many of those green tokens in my pockets as possible. It must cost the supermarket something to  get them so I figure if I do this enough, they'll go bankrupt. As everyone knows Waitrose is the posh people's supermarket and posh people are evil, this must be doing a good thing for society.

[Morat]

If you ever see me in Waitrose I'm lost.

[L CC]

l-r
Bus/bridge fares - stacks to cash in - Eurotrash

[Bledlow]

I don't understand this thread. I just chuck loose change in the self-service tills in shops to pay for what I'm buying. Why collect it? What is the cause of this curious change-collecting fetish?

[Torslanda]

My loose change goes in the till as the float.

When there's too much it's bagged up and banked.

[rr]

I don't understand this thread. I just chuck loose change in the self-service tills in shops to pay for what I'm buying. Why collect it? What is the cause of this curious change-collecting fetish?

Morrisons used to have ones with a conveyor so you could just pour it in.
I find if you put a handful of coppers in first and then over shoot you get silver out.

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[bobb]

I don't understand this thread. I just chuck loose change in the self-service tills in shops to pay for what I'm buying. Why collect it? What is the cause of this curious change-collecting fetish?

I think it's probably just a force of habit from years gone by.

Whenever I fill my car up with petrol, I still get it to a nice round number, even though I'm obviously going to pay for it by card so it makes absolutely no difference. Just can't help it!

[ian]

I do have a big bag of US change because the aforementioned sales tax annoyance. I often stick it in the envelope on the plane, but it still accumulates until my wife makes me stand in the line at a busy store and count it so she can pay $8.73 in loose change.

By and large though, in the UK, I have no cash. I just checked and all I have in my wallet is a £10 note that's been there for a while.

[Ben T]

I don't understand this thread. I just chuck loose change in the self-service tills in shops to pay for what I'm buying. Why collect it? What is the cause of this curious change-collecting fetish?

Some people don't actually ever go to a physical supermarket. Order online.

[ian]

I'm trying to think where I use cash these days. Occasionally in the pub, but less so, everywhere seems to have contactless these days. Shops it's always cards. I did buy a cheese toastie at a market the other day. And then a sausage roll. Local taxis is about the only other place I routinely use cash.