Canadian- No More Pennies

13 years ago

I grew up in Buffalo; my grandfather was Canadian. I read the Buffalo News online every day. Today I read the Royal Canadian Mint will no longer be distributing penny coins to banks and businesses. All cash transactions will be rounded up or down. As an example, if you buy breakfast at Tom Hortons and your bill is $3.87 and you pay with a fiver, you get back $1.15. Canadians, how is the adjustment going for you?

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Comments (14)

Jasdip
13 years ago
I was going to post something to that effect as well.
None of the stores have done it yet. I was in a store yesterday and I paid with pennies.

They won't be getting any more pennies, but they will have some in stock still.

Home Depot has said that they are going to round everything down to the nearest nickel.

They said it costs. 1.6 cents to make a penny. And I was wondering how you guys were doing, if you've heard anything about your penny.

There are even news stories about the nickel being next. Geez, anything to get more money. Although someone was in Australia a number of years ago and he said that everything is 10cents and it makes it much easier to calculate and pay.
colleenoz
13 years ago
Actually we still have 5 cents in Australia but we haven't had 1 cent and 2 cent coins in years. Haven't really noticed much effect, other than lightening the load in the change purse.
Since everything's rounded up or down depending on how close it is to the 5 cent, I think you get some ups, some downs and in the long run it all averages out. (Note, it's the total that gets rounded, not each individual item.)
Plus if you pay with a direct debit card, you pay the exact amount.
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My understanding is that the gas wouldn't go from, for instance, $1.319 to $1.35 unless you bought just one unit. If you bought 10 gallons, for $13.19, it'd round to $13.20. It's not quite the windfall some are suggesting. And yes, in certain circumstances the tax increase percentage-wise would be high, but in real life, I doubt it's going to be that much different. Some of the arguments on both sides of this reminds me of the arguments years ago over going to the metric system. My one teacher in school was talking about it and saying look what would happen for instance in football games. How many times is a play short or over by an inch or two so now if you change it from yards to meters it would make a difference in the game... Yeah, this was a teacher... need I say more? LOL I use pennies. I never understood the idea of keeping buckets of coins. You're not "saving" anything by keeping barrels of coins around the house. You're spending the bills to get the coins to put in the bucket, and I like to keep the bills rather than the coins. For that matter, except for keeping some 1s for tipping I prefer to keep the larger bills and spend the smaller ones rather than pile up the small stuff. I know some feel like they have more if they have 20 $1 bills than they do if they have 2-10s or a $20 bill. I'm not that way. I don't find it that problematic to use coins rather than bills. If I get a pocketful of change I'll pay with the change when I can. I used to keep a cup in the house for change but ran into the problem that it sat there and I figured enough of that. You usually have to make a special trip somewhere to cash in the coins and at $3+ per gallon, you lose a lot of pennies making the trip to say nothing of the waste of time and effort to grunt it down there. I do keep a little cup in my vehicle with some change in it for parking meters, emergency money, etc. If I get an excess of pennies in there, I've been known to pay a $3.07 total with seven pennies (and occasionally even use up some quarters) rather than let them pile up. Easy to do at a drive up window. You normally have to wait and gives you plenty of time to get the right change and even use all change for the purchase, like my $1.07 cup of coffee on which I'll occasionally splurge. (I don't go to the MegaBucks coffee house!) If I find a lot of change in the cup, I'll take in some and use as part of the tip too when I eat out. Not even an effort to reach in, grab some coins and put in the pocket as I'm walking into the restaurant. Seems to me the "bucket brigade" folks are only fooling themselves most of the time, much like those who believe they have a windfall of a savings account by overpaying their withholding on income taxes each year so they get a bigger check at tax paying time. The "windfall" they don't even save, but figure "How can I spend this now?" I shake my head in disbelief at that one too! I will say though, for the few who simply cannot budget at all, then maybe the bucket "savings" could help them. Sort of like the "envelope system" that some use though most abuse. But, that's my opinion derived from observation so if it makes you happy, go ahead. I'm sure I'll get another lecture! LOL Much of my frugality was learned back when there was some noticeable interest being paid at banks so it was worth it to keep as much money in the bank as you could keep there. Now that's gone but I believe the lessons learned are still good. The US citizens rejected dollar coins then some "genius" came up with the SueBee which was laughingly rejected. (Still laugh when I think about the southerner saying "No way! Don't want no broad on mah muney!) I personally refuse to accept them if I get them in change. Guess if they do ban "paper" here, I'll have to go only to places that take credit cards. People don't "change" easily. People still want the perceived "lower" price as proven by the success of the "Cost Club" stores, dollar stores and the 10% off clearance racks where they were marked *up* 25% the week before. It's a fact in retail business that the 99¢ item still sells better than $1.00, except occasionally when there's a $1 area that can have things higher per unit than others. I guess for the real penny-pinchers the the "penny pitching" would encourage buying more since buying 5 - 99¢ non-taxable items would cost less per unit than buying 1-4 of them with the tax round-up. I do question if this is going to cause an accounting nightmare. Tax is (usually) based on a percentage of the sales, so the extra is extra profit for the store? Then to be taxed again? Or do the Feds (or in Canada, the Parls?) accept the amount the cash register says is their share? On small amounts it's of no consequence but a big store will have a difference I would think. All this hoopla over pennies... Hmm. Says something about society doesn't it?
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susan_on
13 years ago
They're saying that stores will take pennies, but won't be giving them back. I haven't been inconvenienced. I'll be kind of glad to get rid of them.
marie_ndcal
13 years ago
Curious, some of us in the lower 48, have Canadian money we save to use when we travel. What do we do with our pennies? I don't have many but hate to loose those I do have. Wonder if our government will do the same, even though they have talked about it.
Marie
susan_on
13 years ago
You can still spend them here, you just won't get any back. If I were in your place and sopped here, if something came to $2.15, I would give them a Tommie and fifteen pennies. I would get rid of them like that.
Jasdip
13 years ago
LOL, Susan, are you typing on a tablet?? Tommie, sopped....hahahaa.

Susan is saying a Toonie, and fifteen pennies. Marie, you may not have toonies and loonies, in your stash.

Edited to correct a spelling mistake

This post was edited by jasdip on Wed, Feb 6, 13 at 8:02
cynic
13 years ago
I can't envision this happening in the US for a long, long time. Not many people would even want to propose it. If proposed by a person of one party, the other party would scream GOVERNMENT INTERFERENCE!!!!!, and if proposed by someone in the other party, the opposition would scream IT HURTS THE POOR!!!!! or some other equally politicized arguments.
patti43
13 years ago
They've talked about it on and off for years in the States, but nothing ever comes of it. I wish they would get rid of them! Pardon the pun, but they're not worth a plug nickel. (I have no idea what a plug nickel is, either.)
susan_on
13 years ago
Lol... yes, Jasdip, I typed that on a tablet. Glad you were able to translate :)
joyfulguy
13 years ago
If you have the ones minted before about 1994, they're almost pure bronze (mostly copper) and worth more than a penny in today's market ... but the ones minted after that are steel with a thin coating of bronze ... so not worth much.

On a nation-wide phone-in on Sunday afternoon on our national radio, someone on the prairies said that he'd been making money on his for years: when he needed a washer for small bolt, he just drilled a hole in a penny, as a real washer cost 3 cents!

Actually ... I think that it was illegal to interfere like that with government property (and end up stealing it).

Currency is only available to us on loan: it ain't ours!

If the total of purchases, plus tax, comes to anything at or under e.g. $1.02, it's rounded down to $1.00. At $1.03 and above, it's usually to be rounded up to $1.05.

One smart-ass went on a website where they were discussing it to suggest that one deposit $0.03 into one's bank account - that they'd have to round it up to $0.05, so he'd gain 40% ... and I objected, saying that a 2 cent return on a base of 3 cents ... was an increase of 66% ... and that after not having to wait for a year.

But... sorry - dealing with the electronic side of things, the rounding-up and rounding-down aren't operational, as the exact amounts can be shown: it's only the physical situation where it applies.

So - some are saying that there'll be an increased use of credit (read "debt") cards when making purchases.

ole joyful
kathleen44
13 years ago
YOU can keep spending with pennies but they won't make anymore.

I have gotten a zillion from businesses I noticed, guess they are anxious to get rid of them fast.

As someone mentioned it will do alot more people in that already are living poverty or below poverty.

And kids that do those donations in pennies and everyone brings in their pennies,that has done of help to many people and places.

Now what?

People will not bring in bunch of nickels, dimes or quarters, they need the money themselves to live on.

But doing some pennies are better to give.

I don't know how many times I have loved those pennies in helping me out in getting things.
jemdandy
13 years ago
From what I read, pennies are still legal tender in Canada. Its just that no more will be minted, and businesses have been advised to prepare for the day when the smallest coin will be 5 cents. That will happen when there are not enough pennies. Financial computations will still be done to the nearest cent, for example, interest bearing bank accounts and sales tax amounts. Rounding will be done on the final sum.

I predict that Canadian pennies will soon dissappear from circulation. Coin collectors and hoarders will soon deplete the supply. Coins in best shape will disappear first, followed by coins that are more worn.

There is another possibility. Canadians will merely use USA pennies and continue as before. The US will experience a leakage of pennies across the border. This will accelerate the move to eliminate pennies on the US side.
bee0hio
13 years ago
Considering how much it costs to mint pennies (well over 1 cent ... it's a HUGE total) I have long thought that our US gov't should drop them from circulation ... just as Canada is now doing.

But it is amazing to me how sentimentally "attached" people are to a penny & use that as a "valid" reason to keep the penny. Also amazing how illogical some peoples' reasons for keeping the penny, but they will decry other forms of gov't waste. To me it's a no brainer, get rid of the bulky, costly, valueless penny!
joyfulguy
13 years ago
A while ago, when this was announced, when I visited one of the churches that I frequent, whose minister is Rev. Matthew Penny ...

... I asked his wife if she were going to get rid of her penny, as well.

She said that she definitely was not planning to do that.

(I forebore asking her whether she considered her penny as more or less as useless as it appeared that our coin has become).

ole joyful

Canadian- No More Pennies

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Jasdip

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