A Pocketful of Change

It’s amazing how much change accumulates in the bottom of my purse here. My aversion to digging around for loose coins existed in the U.S. as well; the cumulative effect was significantly less, however, and I realized it's because U.S. currency is more bill-centric.

Consider the following: in the U.S., there are pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters, which immediately segue to the dollar bill. I’m not including half dollars and the Susan B. Anthony dollar coin here because, even though the half dollar is still considered legal tender, it’s rarely used, and after its final minting in 1999, the Susan B. Anthony dollar all but disappeared due to its unfortunate similarity to the quarter. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_B._Anthony_dollar

The pound sterling, however, is significantly more coin-centric: one-pence, two-pence, five-pence, ten-pence, twenty-pence and fifty-pence coins are all in regular circulation. Then there are one-pound and two-pound coins, keeping in mind that a pound is worth (in real terms) about $1.50. Thankfully, there are no plans to elevate the five-pound coin’s current commemorative status to that of regular circulation. http://www.answers.com/topic/british-five-pound-coin

But while I find the coin issue annoying, British men are even more upset by it. Whenever Gareth is given change by a merchant, he either hands it directly over to me to add to the small mountain inside my handbag, or he waits until we get home and then dumps it in our designated coin jar. It is then my job to keep in mind all the possibilities for coin use (toll booths, shopping cart rental*, etc.) and to make sure I’ve raided the jar before we set out on a journey. Men who don’t immediately discard their change find themselves with holes in their pants pockets from the weight.

It’s easy to see why governments love coins: the average coin has a life expectancy of 20 to 40 years, while a dollar bill can’t handle more than 18 months of abuse by the general public before it’s pulled out of circulation. Nations that decrease their paper note usage are rewarded with massive savings. To put this into perspective, had the dollar coin successfully replaced the bill, the BBC estimated that the U.S. would have saved $500 million each year. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1921123.stm

My one saving grace is that debit cards are accepted practically everywhere - I’ve even managed to stop feeling guilty about using my card for purchases of a couple of pounds.

* Brits have come up with the brilliant idea of putting a locking mechanism on shopping carts that forces shoppers to insert a pound coin, whereby it disengages itself from the row of carts. When you’ve finished with it, you simply reattach it to the row and it gives you back your coin. This solves the problem of workers having to go cart collecting every few hours, plus carts have less of a tendency to magically disappear from store parking lots.