Do you count your change?

I use a debit card all the time, so I never get cash any more. When I get change, I do count it, and then put it in a special drawer where I keep my change. I use it only for vending machines.

 

I always try to keep 99 cents in my pocket – two quarters, three dimes, three nickels and four pennies. Just a habit.

 

Timely thread. I've been shorted on change a lot lately and, of course, fucked at the drive-thru.

 

Quarters say, in big letters below Washington's head, QUARTER DOLLAR. Nickels, on the back below Monticello, say FIVE CENTS. Pennies, on the back, say ONE CENT.

The dime is the only one that doesn't say/spell out how much a dime is worth.

 

My grandpa was like that. He always had change in his pocket, no matter if he was going to church or wherever. I used to do that, but now I keep my change in a cup holder in my car.

 

Fortunately for me most cashiers know what I'm doing when I do that. The ones that give me a strange look when I give them the money understand when the register shows how much change I'm getting back.

 

This exact scenario happened to me at a convenience store last year for one simple reason: the guy was gabbing away with his friend the whole time the transaction occurred. My business was an afterthought. I called him on it, and he actually challenged me back. You're fucking kidding, right? All I had to say was, "Which one of us was paying attention, and which one of us wasn't?" Unbelievable. I was so pissed.

 

I never count my change when I'm sitting at the table.

There will be time for counting later.

 

I thought I was the only person who did this.

 

Yes. Always have. Always will. Especially now that I work for a bank.

I'm just as quick to return money when I've been given too much change as I am to alert the cashier if I've gotten too little change.

 

I was when I was working as a Wally World cashier in 2003. And I can still do it, so a lot of times when the cashier is confused, I count it back for them while they're putting it in my hand. (Give me the quarter...Ok, 50, now another quarter....75, another quarter....that's six, now a one...seven, another one....eight....nine.....ten. Yeah, that's it).

The only time I got messed up was when someone handed me $20.05 for a purchase of $18.02. I know how to do it now, but when I was first doing it, odd numbers like that threw me for a loop.

 

I think he meant to say that his wife noted that U.S. coins don't have the value in numbers on them. There's no 25 on the quarter, for example.

The U.S should dump the paper $1 bill and adopt $1 and $2 coins as Canada did. I kinda liked having $6 in my hand represented by four coins.