Carry Some Change When Going Out

[Jim Koepke]

We took our new kittens to the vet yesterday to get their first shots and check ups.

We also stopped to get some gasoline for the mower and other gas powered tools.

Candy was hungry and wanted a burger. At the drive-thru window was a sign requesting exact change if possible due to a national coin shortage.

From > https://www.fastcompany.com/90525599

Our currency system is based on circulation—the money must constantly move. “The flow of coin through the economy has gotten all . . . it’s kind of stopped,” Jerome Powell, chairman of the Federal Reserve, told the House Financial Services Committee last month. “The places where you go to give your coins and get credit, cash—those have not been working. Stores have been closed. So the whole system of flow has kind of come to a stop.” Coin deposits at banks are down 50% since the start of the pandemic, and customers are avoiding places like transit hubs and laundromats, which typically receive influxes of coins.

Google will provide many other sources for this story.

The economy has been torn asunder by the corona virus pandemic. It is causing a major drop in coins circulating.

jtk

[Curt Harms]

I'd heard about the coin shortage so took some time to sort and package spare change. It turns out I had $25 worth of change which I took to the bank. A few days later I stopped at a WaWa (like a regional 7-11) near Princeton NJ who had a sign on their counter. They were having trouble getting change and were offering $5 cash plus a free coffee/soft drink/something else for $5 worth of coins. My timing once again

[Jim Koepke]

The way things are, it is better to bring the change to local merchants instead of a bank.

jtk

[Tom M King]

The floor in my truck could probably solve the country's coin shortage. I never carry change in my pockets, and just throw it in the floor when I get back to the truck. It has Weatherbeater mats, so it doesn't get kicked out.

[Bill Dufour]

My brother's freind's uncle owned a wrecking yard. He started out with nothing and built it up into a good business. His trick was before crushing the cars he flipped them upside down and shook them with a forklift to get the spare change out.
Bil lD

[Lee Schierer]

Candy was hungry and wanted a burger. At the drive-thru window was a sign requesting exact change if possible due to a national coin shortage.


jtk

We solved the change problem, by giving the drive through windows whole bills and then we tell them to keep the change. After all they are working for minimum wage or less since they are part time and risking exposure to the virus by sticking their head out the drive through window.

[Aaron Rosenthal]

I know I'm in a different country, but around these here parts, the signs are everywhere that they ask you NOT to use cash, but contact-less touch credit or debit cards.

[Doug Garson]

I know I'm in a different country, but around these here parts, the signs are everywhere that they ask you NOT to use cash, but contact-less touch credit or debit cards.

I have had the same experience. Even before the pandemic I rarely used cash these days, probably 90% of my transactions are credit card. Not sure I understand why the lack of circulation of coins or bills would be a problem, I thought we had become a mainly cashless society with most transactions by some form of electronic transfer of funds.

[David Bassett]

Around here we've had businesses preferring electronic payments well before the pandemic. Now even the previously neutral ones are requesting that.

But it is (was?) regional. I was caught off guard on a visit to NYC when I found many, most small, businesses were cash only. (To use a CC in Katz Deli, not that small, we were shuttled to a back corner to a single CC station.)

[roger wiegand]

I mainly use Applepay now because most places you don't have to touch the pad to complete a transaction. A small thing, but one high-touch surface avoided.

Maybe we can use the occasion to finally ditch the penny? That would be a really positive outcome. I'd ditch the nickel as well, along with one and five dollar bills, getting serious about completely replacing them with $1 and $5 coins. The saving to the treasury would be a serious amount of money.

[Stan Calow]

A lot of the businesses around here ask if you want to round up and they will donate your change to a charity. I finally realized it was because of the change shortage. You need appointments to go into banks here, so nobody can take their loose change in. ApplePay is great but seems to not work a lot of the time. Yeah they should ditch the small change, like Canada has done painlessly, but the last time they proposed ending pennies and nickels, the metal and mining companies persuaded their friendly congressmen to block that.

[Matt Day]

My brother's freind's uncle owned a wrecking yard. He started out with nothing and built it up into a good business. His trick was before crushing the cars he flipped them upside down and shook them with a forklift to get the spare change out.
Bil lD

I’m sure a lot more than coins fell out when he did that.

[Jim Koepke]

I’m sure a lot more than coins fell out when he did that.

Hopefully no bodies.

jtk

[William Chain]

Our bank is busy begging for coins. I took the time to wrap up about $27 in rolled coins. Took them in. Teller said they can’t take them that way and to unwrap them and then there’s a fee to count it all to deposit it. I picked up the rolls and started to leave. They yelled we need those! I said then what the hell is with the attitude and fee? I still have my coins.

[Frank Pratt]

I haven't used cash since Covid & probably only once or twice in the last year before. I'll even use my CC for a $.25 purchase The $50 bill stashed in my wallet will probably wear down to plastic confetti before it gets spent.