Same thing happens if coin operated machines with bill accepters don't have coins to make change. It might not be obvious, but the coins inserted into most machines aren't directly dispensable as change, so if it runs out of change, it won't be able to make change until the operator comes to service it, which might be longer intervals these days.
It sounds like the coin requests from banks to the federal reserve can't all be filled, and the federal reserve is rationing coins until that changes. I suspect some of the usually net coin receiving businesses aren't open, or aren't receiving the same number of coins, making it harder for the net coin giving businesses to get the supplies they need.
I work in a niche industry that enables stores to order coin from banks. The issue is that stores can't get coins from banks because the banks don't have them either. Banks order coins (and notes) from the Federal Reserve. The Federal Reserve is shorting the shipment of coins to all major banks.
So, when a store like Target orders coin from its bank, they may order $500 in pennies. The bank then may ship them no pennies or a fraction of the order, depending on the bank vault the coin is coming from, what inventory they have, and formulas in place.
Look for this issue to go on through at least Christmas.
I've never understood why the cost of that isn't included in the rent, landlords can't be taking that much of a cut from it.
https://www.wash.com/360-laundry-room-solution/
https://www.coinomatic.com/multi-housing-coin-laundry-soluti...
https://www.payrange.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/PR_Broch...
Only downside is the prices went up a quarter. It is convenient though.
Some buildings have switched (decades ago) to reloadable laundry cards to avoid having to deal with change.
The machines are commercial grade, depending on the amount of tenants they will have high wear and will cost to purchase $3000 each. Minimum of a set is 2 so $6000.
If you use a management company that deals in laundromat and repair, the capex is not there but you'll ave a monthly opex of about $50-100 that should include a guarantee and onsite tech. Per set.
It scales up pretty quickly because you can, maybe, push a one set onto 4 units.
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But it's also a sign of cheaper locations and landlords to not have your own washer/dryer inside.
I used to do facilities maintenance for a hotel. We weren't space constrained in terms of laundry so we ran a fleet of cheapo consumer machines. One was down at any given time but it was still cheaper than introducing fewer high grade commercial machines. We had some commercial stuff that was ancient and still worked. Didn't break much less but it was easier to work on (primarily because age) when it did.
Obviously if you want to minimize downtime because you're an absentee landlord who has to pay a PM company to do a visit every time a lid sensor fucks off then having commercial machines makes sense. In terms of dollars per load the cheap consumer stuff is in fact cheaper, assuming you don't live in a regulatory capture hellscape where you are supposed to have a plumber connect your drains and gas lines (or are willing to ignore those rules).
I think in CA, such charges are limited by the same laws as rent control, so at least they tend to be under-priced. At one I lived at (if SF's Tenderloin), it charged well below what nearby laundromats did per load ($1.25 vs much more for similar size).
Because they're a massive cash cow that people don't think about when comparing price of rent vs what you get.
I'm glad the cost of laundry isn't included in my rent, because I'd just be paying extra.
[1] Pay someone to do your laundry by the pound.
Usually, on a per week basis, we do one change order of at least over $100. Over $100 vs $17.50... The difference adds up rather quick, even if you do a run every other day (not quite sure how frequent change orders can be before they limit that too, though).
If you pay cash and don’t have the exact amount the total will be rounded up and the excess donated to a charity.
It's a last resort, for sure, but we've already discussed it. As of right now, we're limited to one roll of each denomination ($17.50) by our bank, so the need may very well eventually arise, and that means that some of my collection might just end up as someone else's change.
Remember, the concept of supply and demand is still valid even for currency marked with an official denomination. You could think of that marking as the _minimum_ value of the currency, as guaranteed by the state.
I think everywhere else I've travelled, someone (or a machine) giving change will optimize it to the fewest coins. £3.85 would be £2, £1, 50p, 20p, 10p, 5p.
The only exception is something like a food stall that's set all their prices to multiples of €1 (I've seen this several times in Germany), they might keep plenty of €1 and €2 coins for change. If someone pays with smaller coins, they have no use for them and will give them as change.
Having lived in Japan, I was a big fan of larger denomination coins. In Japan, the smallest bill is worth about $10 USD, and they have coins worth about $1 and $5. Having a pocket full of change could actually get you something nice! I actually treated two of my friends to a night out at our local izakaya for ~$100 with 20 coins.
In an effort to promote the use of different coins and bills in the US, I would take all of the one dollar bills I accumulated over X amount of time, and I would buy $1 coins (Sacajaweas and Susan Bs) and $2 bills so that I could circulate them and try to get people accustomed to them.
I ran into three issueus:
1. Cashiers would give me the wrong change for the $2 bill. They usually treated it like a $1 bill, but at times I got change for a $20.
2. Cashiers would be mildly annoyed that there was not a slot in their register for $2 bills or $1 coins.
3. I actually had one subway worker (at the T in Cambridge) actually throw the coins back at me and yell at me and my friends that she wouldn’t take our “circus money” while pounding the plexiglass. We were all in business causal and (I hope) didn’t look like circus performers, so it was an odd reaction to say the least.
Anyway, I do all of my banking remotely now, so it’s harder to make exchanges like that, but I still do it sometimes.
I really wish my fellow Americans would embrace the use of larger coins and maybe even ditch the penny and maybe even the nickel.
They could make a $2 coin. It would fit in with other Western countries' highest-value circulating coins:
2 GBP = $2.53
2 AUD = $1.40
2 CAD = $1.47
20 DKK = $3.10
20 SEK = $2.20
20 NOK = $2.20
2 EUR = $2.29
50 CZK = $2.54
10 HKD = $1.29
2 NZD = $1.31
500JPY = $4.67
I would expect 50¢ and $1 coins to be especially popular with people running vending machines or other machines giving change. 50¢ coins means refilling it less frequently, and encouraging $1 coins means less trouble recognizing paper money.
I wondered how the coin mechanisms on pool tables work in the USA, since nowadays it's probably not unusual for the price to be more than $1 or $1.50 (depending whether the mechanism has 4 or 6 slots). In Europe they just take whatever mixture of coins is appropriate, an image search suggests in the USA one must buy metal tokens to feed the machine.
I remember trying to feed about $6 in quarters into a payphone in the USA, when there was some issue with travel insurance and we had to make a call to Britain. We couldn't put them in fast enough. Eventually, the cheap motel let us use their normal phone.
(The first two are still in widespread use in the UK, although I haven't seen them much in Denmark or Sweden. Here, they're more likely to have replaced the coin slot with a contactless card reader.)
Saw one sign offering coin redemption (I guess in one of those machines) for no fee.