Pocket change?

This is too funny. Some moron has an article on MSN Edge touting coin collecting as a hobby. His spin on it is that there are coins floating around out there that YOU might find in your pocket change.
Then he leads off with a 1913 nickel and follows that up with a Fugio cent. I really have to start paying more attention to my change cat. LOL

 

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Looks like I'm missing out by using a credit card instead of cash. I could have had a fistful of twenty cent pieces over the years.

 

I need to buy more stuff and pay with cash.

 

I do pay cash about twice a week, I’m getting good at forcing the DIY pay kiosks to dispense the kind of change I want.

For example, I have 4 items but pay cash for a single item first. For $1.01 I feed two $1.00 bills to get .99 cents back, going for max pennies (looking for the small date copper Denver (!) or the 1983 copper or the 1992 CAM). Then I finish checking out with a debit card…Spark

 

Wow. That is some insane clickbait. The downside for the poster is that anyone who knows enough about coins will know instantly that it's likely rubbish. How many people outside of the hobby have heard of a Fugio Cent? I'm also assuming the article referred to the 1913 Liberty Nickel? The one of which only 5 are known? Wow.

As to the other topic that sprung from this post: I never use cash anymore. I haven't for maybe 10 years or more. Everything around me, even the vending machines, accepts plastic and getting cash has become inconvenient since I'd have to go to the nearest bank, which isn't very near. So, cash has become a novelty for me. Oh well.

 

I usually pay with plastic, although several places give discounts for cash, so I'm leaning toward doing that. For small purchases I sometimes use cash, just for the change. (I recently posted a buffalo nickel I received in change. Still looking for that 1913 Liberty nickel!) I also use change at drive-through fast food windows or anywhere I can't see what is being done with my card. Perhaps paranoid, but there are those who have found ways to make unauthorized use of your card if you can't watch them.

 

I didn't think of it but my daughter speculated that the article was generated by AI. Which makes way more sense than the idea that someone out there thinks a lot of people have trouble with coins from the 1700"s clogging up their change jars.

 

This. Somewhere I clipped a truly awful AI-generated article about rare coins, and I was going to grouse about it here, but I lost track of it. It might well have been the same article.

 

The last time people thought that one could find a 1913 Liberty Nickel in circulation was when B. Max Mehl was hocking The Star Rare Coin Encyclopedia.

 

You mean they charge extra for using a credit card!! Credit cards were supposed to help the vendor get more customers and allow the customers to spend more than they might normally spend when paying with cash. Now the vendors have decided they do not like to pay the credit card companies their share of the transaction (about 2% to 3.5%) so they are making the customers pay it. I no longer patronize stores that offer a "discount" for cash.

 

Traveling the world for work, you find out that cash is still king. That said, I split my exchanges between plastic and cash. Here, I like to use cash and keep down my digital footprint. And if a vendor gives a discount using cash, that's fine with me. Several restaurants in the area discount cash transactions. Cash price at gas stations usually saves you $0.10-0.20 a gallon, but you have to go inside and pay, which is fine with me. And since I don't CRH anymore, it's the only way to feed the hobby from a purist's perspective.

One thing I've noticed is that rounding is more the case. I guess simple math is problematic. So, more quarters and dimes in the change. Nickels and cents are scarcer to catch in change. And the occasional Star Note. So, I'll be making change along the way.

 

Separate cash prices are still uncommon here in central NC, although I think the relevant law changes made them legal nationwide. And the last couple of times I tried it, paying cash for gas meant going inside and standing in line, then if I want to "fill up", pre-paying in excess and going back through the line to get my change. At some point in the last few years, I decided that my time was worth more than a small discount. (It would be different if I were filling a semi instead of a Prius, I'm sure.)

 

But the stores were always charging the customers to cover the credit-card fees. It's just that, without a "cash discount", the people using cash were subsidizing the people using credit cards -- just as the people who run balances or make late payments on their credit cards subsidize the people who pay it off in full every month.

I'm not going to lie, I take advantage of these policies to save money. We get rewards on every credit-card purchase, and we don't pay a dime directly to any credit-card company for fees/interest/membership. In a sense, that money is coming out of other consumers' pockets. But in a sense, all money that circulates comes out of consumers' pockets, and goes back into them, repeatedly...

 

And, you guessed it, taxed repeatedly! Imagine that.

 

Which taxes also go back into people's pockets, repeatedly. Just not necessarily the pockets you'd prefer.

 

Retail sales have been my world for 50 years. These were large retail stores. In the early days 80% of sales were cash. When I retired a few months ago, 90% of all sales were credit card and open accounts.
This change made all retail firms to increase prices to cover the 2% to 3% card fees. These fees come right off the bottom line profit. That's a lot of money when few operations net better than 5%.

I'm good with those that discount a cash sale. They save 2% to 3% and pass the savings back to the customer.

I try to use a CC for anything I need to keep track of for taxes at the end of the year. I use cash for small stuff and tips.

 

I only use cash for everyday purchases. The only time I use I use a card is when I buy gas and that's only because the stations now want you to pay at the pump or come in and pay first which means going in twice so you can get your change.
Using cash also keeps me on a budget. Once my cash for the week is gone, that's it.

 

You must have trouble finding gas stations. Most of them in my area charge more if you use a credit card. One dealer I know pays the shipping if you pay by check.

 

now I want to find a Fugio cent in my pocket change

 

what do they pay shipping for if you use a check ??
the gas delivery cost via truck to the station ?