Americans fascinated by ...

[Cicero]

As opposed to having a wallet full of bills and only have 25 bucks?

25 $1 bills is a lot less annoying than 25 $1 coins.

But who ever carries around that many $1 bills\coins? Personally, I never have more than three or four loonies in my wallet at a time.

When I visited England about a decade ago, I often ended up with seven or eight pound coins before I was able to spend several of them (their bulk didn't help). I vastly prefer dollar bills to dollar coins. Coins are durable, but not very convenient.

(I probably have about $10 in Sacagawea dollars in my spare change tin right now.)

 

[Alidar Jarok]

I actually had a system. I would use the 1 quid and 2 quid coins for pub money, the notes for other kinds of spending. Luckily I went to the pub three or four times a week, so I never had to worry about accumulating pound coins.

However, loose change was much more difficult to deal with, since I didn't know which was which at first. In low lighting conditions, you can't just read them. Rather than looking like an idiot in line for a pint, I would usually just ignore them and accumulate even more change.

Oh, and the 2p coin has an overinflated sense of its own importance

 

[ITL]

I don't mind the £1 and £2 coins so much - I've got enough pockets to cope with the few I generally get in change. And most corner shops, newsagents and Post Offices are fairly accommodating if you want to convert some to paper money. I do miss the £1 note, though.

 

[MacLeod]

25 $1 bills is a lot less annoying than 25 $1 coins.

But who ever carries around that many $1 bills\coins? Personally, I never have more than three or four loonies in my wallet at a time.

When I visited England about a decade ago, I often ended up with seven or eight pound coins before I was able to spend several of them (their bulk didn't help). I vastly prefer dollar bills to dollar coins. Coins are durable, but not very convenient.

(I probably have about $10 in Sacagawea dollars in my spare change tin right now.)

There are ways to minimise the amount of coinage you get.

If you are spening £6.50 and have 1 x £10 and 2 x £1 coin's, give the cashir both and you'll usually get a fiver back (plus 50p) instead of another 3 pound coins (and a 50p),

I tend not have an issue with an excess of coins, as I use my card to pay for virtually everything.

 

[Lindley]

I disliked the way it distorts the line of a closely tailored jacket if it's worn in the chest pocket, and I hate even more the feel of carrying it in a rear trouser pocket

I've never heard of carrying a wallet in a chest pocket before, but I certainly can understand not wanting it in the back pocket. I don't think I've ever used my back pockets for anything. That's where I sit, why would I put something there?

My wallet always stays in my right pocket.

 

[cultcross]

I vastly prefer dollar bills to dollar coins. Coins are durable, but not very convenient.

That is the other benefit of coins, durability. I have pounds in my wallet from the mid 80s and it isn't unusual to come across one from the first batch in 1983. The saving on printing thousands of replacement bills has got to be significant.

When the £1 coin was introduced, our government took a lot of lessons from the failed introduction of the dollar coin in 79, such as making it a different colour and thickness to other coins, and rapidly withdrawing the pound note, forcing the adoption of the coin. As with most such changes (Such as metric labelling) the initial moaning quickly gave way to acceptance which equally quickly gave way to the idea that this was, by jove, the best damn way to do money.

 

[SmoothieX]

Can't you change ypur coins for notes at your workplace?

Not if you don't work in retail. I work in an office, we don't have a cash register.

 

[Miss Chicken]

Can't you change ypur coins for notes at your workplace?

Not if you don't work in retail. I work in an office, we don't have a cash register.

My question was aimed at RoJoHen who had been telling us about the large amount of tips he got in one dollar bills. He was saying it would be difficult to carry his tips around if he received mainly coins.

If you work in an office you don't have to worry about $25 plus in tips and therefore won't have his problems.

 

[An Officer]

There are ways to minimise the amount of coinage you get.

If you are spening £6.50 and have 1 x £10 and 2 x £1 coin's, give the cashir both and you'll usually get a fiver back (plus 50p) instead of another 3 pound coins (and a 50p),

This is what I do as well. I hardly ever have a problem with excess coins, and I use mostly cash.

I have noticed though that self service machines don't respond too well to some of this - sometimes I end up with more change than I would have otherwise. Perhaps the only down side to self service I've seen so far.

I've had those machines giving me a handful of one and two pence coins in one transaction (I really don't like the smell they leave behind, some of them are especially old and grotty, I think they end up in fountains too often) - when I've spent the entire day trying to get rid of those. I think they're programmed to out-think customers like us. Perhaps they don't want small value coins stacking up too quickly, thus saving them maintenance costs. Bottom line business, gotta' love it.

 

[MacLeod]

Well knowing a little bit about how self checkouts work, it's not suprising you might end up with more change, due to them having to be loaded with change units. It's not quite as simple as a cashier just getting another bag of change.

 

[Owain Taggart]

I actually got one of the new bills today. It's pretty nifty. It feels a lot thinner than the paper bill, in fact.

 

[Smellincoffee]

Eight pages and no one has suggested that plastic money is a a 'looney' idea?

 

[Canadave]

I saw one of them today. They're pretty cool, and you can definitely tell that they're far more durable then the current paper bills.