Penny Saver
hackerfactor.com
hackerfactor.com
All stores round up or down the nearest five cents, evening the system out. You're only charged the precise amount if you pay electronically. Banks and some government transactions will result in a 1c or 2c coins, but it's pretty rare for them to end up in your pocket.
I suppose you could game the system if you paid in cash when the rounding was in your favor, and paid in debit when it wasn't. I doubt it would be worth the effort.
So I'm happy to keep the small change. I consider it to be a free drink or few, in exchange for some minutes of my time.
There are similar machines in supermarkets that give you a voucher to use at the till when paying for your shop, though they tend to charge (as much as 15%). They do usually have the option of giving the rest to charity though, if you are so inclined (but you could do the same at the bank and donate without some other entity lifting off up to 15%).
"Fuck the pennies - look after the pounds"I guess the solution is to get away from physical currency altogether, with the cheap point of entry for things like Square now I should be able to use debit or my cell phone to pay for anything.
That's not quite the same since it wasn't just pennies. But the point still stands: (1) I never had pockets full of change, (2) after a while it was worth me cashing in. This would be the case with even any high quantity of low value coins. I know people say that you shouldn't pinch pennies, but it didn't waste my time to do so. It's as easy as putting your keys down and in 5 years time it will be worth something to you.
...tell your kid that they are his if he can count them for you?
I'm amazed that shops in the US can get away with rounding up.
Anyway, it was just an analogy: my point was that applying yourself to your normal day-to-day activities on the job is probably more productive than spending an hour a month scraping together pennies here and there. Even if we aren't all Bill Gateses.