This month marked the 116th anniversary of the release of the first Lincoln "pennies" in 1909. (pennies are an English coin and the US has never minted any) They will stop making them after this year. The reason: they cost 3.7 cents each to produce in fiscal year 2024 and have cost over their face value to mint for decades now. The government finally came to its senses and will stop minting them once the current supply of blanks runs out. I agree with their decision, but as a numismatist I will miss finding the first current year cent in circulation. Nickels cost 13.8 cents each to manufacture during the same fiscal year. The genius of our government! Be prepared to have transactions rounded to the nearest nickel if you pay cash like I do.
We have not had pennies made for quite a few years in Canada but we still have nickels. While counting change today, I found a 1947 King George VI penny. Also an American penny that was really hard to read the date. You get used to the rounding up or down.
There are a couple of places in my small town that charge more for debit card/CC use. In those places, I use cash. I guess rounding up to the nearest nickel won't really be noticeable in those cases. Otherwise, as long as the purchase is large enough, I use my cc and earn cash back anyway. It will be noticeable if I run into a convenience store for a pack of gum though. Which begs the question on how one does the accounting for the extra money going into the till since cash received won't match the actual total. Which also makes me onder how that works for paychecks being cashed at banks/grocery stores. My checks rarely end in a number divisible by 5, so either the banks keep the couple of cents, or lose money on handing out the couple of cents. I mean, personally, my checks are auto-deposit so it doesn't affect me. But there are still plenty of people that use paper checks and cash them to live their daily lives. Yes, I know that others have resolved those issues, I just have never thought of things like that before.
I know you folks eliminated the dollar bill years back and eventually replaced your two dollar note as well. I have some loonies and toonies here somewhere.
Besides Mom & Pop stores seems everywhere are electronic registers (since sadly many can't count change back anymore) and should account for it via the programming I'd guess.
All the point of sales registers work out the round up/down and even tell the cashier how much to give back in change. Like you said, no one seems to be able to count back change in their head anymore.
I was at Lowes the other day and the young cashier couldn't figure out the change count even though the register told her. I slowly told her the number of each coin to give me back!
There's a gas station/convenient store near me where the change is dispensed automatically. The cashier just punches in the cash they received and the coins aren't touched by the cashier
I don't know, I'm sure that there will be a law passed somewhere, most likely a Blue state, claiming that rounding UP would be discriminatory against minorities in some regard. If not Racist in some manner, the Left will absolutely find some way to blame TRUMP any way Those are the two likely results that I see, most likely BOTH Doug
Woodwidow I have noticed the banks down here do not take any Canadian change anymore. Maybe we can ship our unused "up north" money to you I may even have some from back in the 40's or 50's.
I guess we are more generous although a roll of American quarters would be the same price as a Canadian roll. No exchange on coin just on the paper bills and cheques. Our change always has American coin mixed in it.
My bank won't take a Canadian coin. I have taken jars of coins to the bank and have them run through their coin counter and any Canadian coins are kicked out.
A local bank had coin counting machines like that. They would give me all the rejects including Canadien. I have a huge jar full from decades of saving them. Maybe I'll take a trip over the border someday and spend it.
