Yes - it's true.

They've been talking about it for a while ... and now the gov't. says that's what they're going to do ... as, they say, it costs more than a penny to make one.

Some say that it'll help the impoverished business foks, as they'll be rounding up, rather than rounding down.

So now, instead of $1.319 per litre for gas, looks like it'll be $1.35 per litre ($1.359?).

We've had a $1.00 coin for some time - call us "Loonie" if you like - but that's what we call it (as there's an engraving of a loon on the back).

When the $2.00 coin came out a few years ago - yaller in the middle with a silver-coloured ring around it, it's been called a "Toonie", I guess to rhyme with "Loonie" ... or possibly "Twonie" as it's two of 'em.

That saves 'em a lot of money over the short-lived paper dollars, so one would think that they could use some of that saving to susidize the minting of the pennies.

Seems to me that they've been finding enough reasons to put prices up ...

... but many folks haven't seen much increase in wages for a while - several years, in fact, for many.

What with many being laid off in their fifties and finding alternate/successor employment difficult (and, when found, usually more skinflinty - as that was one of the major reasons that they'd been laid off - life's even more difficult, for them).

ole joyful

Yep, to be phased out by the fall.

I'm against it, because right off the bat, everything is going to be 5cents more. Of course the politicians said that prices will be "rounded down or up" to the nearest nickel. I don't believe that anyone will round it down.

Apparently it costs 1.6 cents to make a penny, so after much talk over the years, they are finally ditching it.

I think it's great!!! They cost more to make than they are worth and really, who spends pennies anyway? I drop them in donation cans on store counters.

Like I said - finding a dozen methods to have prices going up.

Wages - ain`t!

Except for the few who are consolidating control.

o j

They keep talking about it here in the states, but they never act on it. Maybe we'll follow your example, Canadians. I sure hope so! I know when it's time to empty the coin section of my purse when it starts getting too full of pennies I can barely lift it.

patti43: EXACTLY why I don't want our US dollar bills to become coins! Way too heavy. Kinda hard to put in a wallet......But i've heard it's coming to that. I understand nickles also cost more to make than they're worth. We may just follow Sweden in becoming a cashless society.

USA is next!

It's amazing how quickly we became used to $1 and $2 coins. They actually aren't that heavy at all. That's what everyone was complaining about when it was first being introduced.

A lot of people save money quicker, by dumping their change into a jar, with you've got looines and toonies in there along with nickels, dimes and quarters, it really ads up.

I dump all my change into a plastic bucket every day. When it's full, I take it to a bank with a coin-counting machine. Yes, they take a fee but at least I get $15 or $20 in paper money every time I turn them in. One year I saved my coins for a long time, turned them in and gave the cash to hubby for a Christmas gift. It was just over $100.

The coin-sorter machines are free at the bank (imagine that!) ...

... but at the one at the grocery the other day a man was putting quite a lot of coin through their machine.

I asked him whether he was aware of how much they charged, he said that he was (about 10 - 11% - more or less what interest the bank pays in about 8 - 15 years).

He had a boy about 8 with him, and I suggested that he pay the lad half of that amount to count the change and roll it: keep the fee in the family - half for him, half for the kid.

He didn't sound too impressed: figured that I was walking on his turf, maybe?

Not costly for me to make the suggestion: what he does with it is up to him.

ole joyful

We get 4 litres (slightly over a U.S. gal - Imperial gals. are bigger) of milk in three plastic bags, held in another bag, up here. Those bags are fairly sturdy and I use one to carry my change.

I've been wondering whether I should ask a friend to check whether I list to the right when the bag gets a bit heavy ...

... but haven't, so far.

o j

I saw the news article the other day about the Canadians ditching the penny. Good for them. Makes total economic sense to me.

It was stated that the US penny AND nickel cost more to mint than their value. I favor our ditching ~~at least~~ the penny. But I am forever amazed that there are people who lament ridding our monetary system of a penny. Costs be-damned, they WANT the penny!

Be careful what you ask for.

In Germany in the 1920s they had oodles of million Mark notes (if that was what their currency was called then).

And it took a wheel-barrow load of 'em to make modest purchases.

Prices have been going up - wages haven't (unless you're a big shot).

Let's not encourage the marketers' enthusiasm for inflation.

ole joyful

Curious, if I have Canadian coins,live in the US, and return to Canada after they make the change over, what happens to my pennies. I save Canadian money to spend when I go there, but have been unable to do so for a few years due to health problems. Also around the border cities, we do get Canadian coin mixed in with US, I just add them to my collection. Some people really get upset--not worth it!

I seldom use coin or paper currency except for tips. The few coins in my purse have been there for *years*. I put everything on a credit card that is paid in full at the end of each month. It's convenient, and I have a record of my purchases. If I'm going to the grocery I just put my driver's license, the store's 'customer card', and my CC in a pocket. There's no 'purse in the shopping cart' problem that way, either.

I've heard rumors about this happening in the US. It would be a TREMENDOUS windfall for many states when they collect sales tax! For example, here in Florida, the state sales tax is 6% and counties are allowed to add to it. In our county the sales tax is 7%. Sooooo, if I buy something for $1, and if we have pennies,I would pay $1.07. But if there are no pennies, the tax would be rounded up and I would pay $1.10!!!!! That's almost a 50% increase in my tax! Multiply that by millions of transactions a day! It would force us into being a cashless society and using only checks/debit/credit cards or getting hit with a huge tax increase for the privilege of paying in cash.

I think only 3% of transactions in Sweden are cash just for that reason.

Canadians are smart. They'll use US pennys - let the US mint make the pennies. - Just kidding!

By the way. my sales tax is 5% plus a local tax of 0.1% for a total of 5.1%; The 0.1% is for financing the Milwaukee Brewewrs' stadium. (How about that. The ball club convinced the legislators that the 4 to 5 counties surrounding the new stadium should finance it. Did we get a break on ticket prices - Nooo. An average family of 4 can not justify the cost of attending a ball game including paying a $10 parking fee for the family car.)

If we elimate the penny, maybe we'll return to the WW2 practive of issuing "tokens" printed on dense cardboard.

Yes, pennies are being discontinued. And, yes, our already high prices will increase. The one good thing about it is that I won't have to worry about my dog swallowing a penny - pennies contain zinc - so if your dog swallows a penny - surgery in many cases. I guess also that since it is no fun rolling pennies that d/cing them is a good thing. Much more fun to roll loonies and twonies - except that I keep using them to park the car since meters are showing up everywhere. There are a few branches of our bank that will roll the coins for clients without charge - but they are not close to me - so kind of pointless considering the aggravation and the gas.

Five of your saved Canadian pennies'll buy you a nickel's worth of stuff ...

... unless they refuse to accept them, saying that they're no longer legal tender.

In which case, visit the ofice of the nearest Member of Parliament and raise ... he(double hockey sticks)!

If they don't give you a nickel for your five pennies - throw them at them! Well, don't do that: you might end up in jail!

(Think what that'd cost the Canadian taxpayers)!!

ole joyful

Eccentric, our TD has a change-counter at no charge. For anyone, not just TD customers.

And when the machine counts 'em, eccentric, you get a ticket ...

... but that's the kind that they'll exchange at the counter for cash.

o j

P.S. Message rejected: Ed's too loquacious, today - had to amend the heading.

o j

maybe stores will start taking a guide from jcp's new pricing?

Question: If the penny is eliminated, What will happen to all the 19.99, 3.97 etc. prices? Maybe we can get rid of that ridiculous practice started by Mr. J. C. Penny and get back to pricing to the nearest 5 cents. (It had it use in its day.) And then there is a marketing theory about pricing one cent below a whole amount will better entice a consumer to buy. I don't think that one will go away. Without a penny, a price of 19.97 is really 20.00.

19.95, anyone?

o j

P.S. Message rejected ... until I added the word.

o j (again ... or should that be "still"?)

We all know that nothing is going to be $2.95. If it's currently $2.97, it should go down to $2.95. They will undoubtedly raise the price to $3.00

What I'm wondering is what happens at the gas pumps. How often do you go a penny or two over the amount you want?

The station will waive the penny or two perhaps. They'll have to. If they want to pump $40.05, it might be $40.07, then it becomes an endless game. :)

Troublemaker.

o j

My problem with the free TD change-counters is that they are not in every branch - at least not in the 3 closest to me. I happened across an excellent teller (now transferred of course) and she told me about them - but you have to go to specific branches in Toronto at least. So I roll them myself - pennies not so much.

No coin counters in my TD so I end up rolling the coin and counting it up myself - which is OK as I've had tellers make mistakes when they total. OJ - I liked your suggestion to the fellow at the coin sorter.... FYI. Budster

Hi, Budster - nice to hear from you - it's been rather a long time.

I frequent about 3 TD branches, occasionally at a couple more, and I've only seen a coin sorter/counter in one.

By the way - you'd heard in a recent report, had you, that TD has more branches in the U.S. than in Canada, now?

ole joyful

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?

OJ - yes I heard that about the number of TD's Canada vice US. I would like to see a coin sorter in at least one of the TD's so I could use it - however rolling and counting never bothered me anyway - it's all money in my pocket and that's the way I like it. Budster who wishes you a Happy Easter.

And happily offered back atcha, kid!

ole joyfuelled (with a bit o' help from change - including common cents ... plus loonies & toonies/twonies, at times)

Sometimes it seems the US the the last of the "first world" countries to adapt a good idea. Europe and Canada often seem to be ahead of us.

We gather up the loose change about once/month and take it to the bank, where it is automatically counted. We always deposit that amount into our savings. It adds up. I agree about tax refunds. We try to balance our W-2s so that we come out even, but an unexpected bonus or dividend can throw us off. If we get a refund, it goes toward retirement. It's not "free" money, it is money that we earned and accidentally let the government use all year!