to think we should get rid of coppers?

[Vitamints]

I've just sorted through a load of change (mostly pennies and 2p pieces that have accumulated in my purse and DP's pockets and get dumped in the pot on the mantelpiece) and now my hands stink. They're heavy and smelly and annoying and ruin your pockets and I hate them. They must be worth a fraction of what the half new penny was worth when it was discontinued.

I would like

Copper coins:

1p (discontinued)
2p (discontinued)
5p (to be phased out when it becomes as worthless as a 2p is now)

Silver coins:

10p
20p
50p

Gold coins:

£1
£2
£5

Notes:

£10
£20
£50 (and actually using them, rather than shopkeepers looking at you funnily - I'm sure nobody looked askance at you for using a £20 note in the eighties)

AIBU?

Absolutely not!! I always give our DS the coppers for his penny jar, you know you won't miss then and he loves to save them and of course you then have all the fun of counting them up and consequently him feeling rich!!! Totally understand on the hand hygiene issue mind you, but the same germs are on all coins and notes....

I think we should get rid of cash. Contactless cards are quicker and easier than cash for paying.

Are you a spy?

Cash is one of the few untrackable ways of paying for things as it is. How would I pay for my class A drugs and explosive fertiliser - bitcoin and personal services?

I save 1ps, 2ps, 5ps, 20ps and £2 coins. Not sure why really, but it adds up to quite a bit after a while, although I rarely seem to get £2 coins. But the coppers are the annoying ones, it takes ages to collect enough to make it worth changing those, so I have some sympathy with your view Vitamints.

I'm another one who would have no savings left if you took away the 1,2 and 5 penny coins

I actually think the police pay a vital
Role in our society

Why the angst about Coinstsr machines? As long as the person using it knows a charge is levied and is happy with that, what's the problem?

Like Worra I can't be doing with the faff of counting the coppers, 5pence 10pence (and rebel that I am, 20 pence) pieces - and chick them all into the machine - still got over £100 last time I did it and was happy with that

There are £5 coins in circulation!

Ever tried to spend on, london?
I imagine they would get an even stranger look than £50 notes.
And yes, I have one upstairs, but its worth, apparently, more than £5???!!!!

The strongest argument so far seems to be the penny arcade games !
Even if they're no longer legal tender, the arcade could use them as tokens & swap 10 for the DCs 10p piece or whatever.

The inflationary pressure of the rounding up, say a 43c item to 45c is really minimal because it only applies when buying a single item, and with cash.
Which really is a tiny minority of purchases (newspapers maybe the most common)

For example if you bought 2x the same 43c items the cost would be 86 cents, rounded down to 85.
If you buy a random selection of 2 or more (or a shopping trolley full) of things, even if they're all deliberately priced at a figure ending in 3, 4, 8 or 9 to try and get the rounding-up , it works out equally likely that the resulting total would be a rounded-up one as a rounded-down one (and half as likely that it would end in a 5 or 0 and stay the same)

If you bought something for 43c / kilo the cost could also go either way, 40:40:20 rounded up or down or stays the same.

And credit & debit cards, online payments, cheques etc are all for the exact amount.

Worra don't know whereabouts you are but a few of our local banks have recently put in the magic counting machines so bags no longer needed! I enjoy going to empty the Pringles tube of change...

Bagging them up and taking them to the bank is too much hassle, and you don't always have enough to fill whole bags.

I spend mine in the do it yourself till at the supermarket. Just throw in whatever copper I have in my purse and pay the rest by card - saves it building up to inconvenient amounts.

Amusement arcades is also a good use of them. Despite no DCs, DP and I spent a fun half hour playing the 2p dropper things at the coast last year.

Charity boxes are also a good use for them.

The Australian system would be a good compromise, but a family member who used to live in Australia told a tale of someone he knew that worked out how to get things like mushrooms for free by buying them individually or in small groups that cost 2 cents and hence rounded down to zero.

Sounds ridiculous, but I can see the extreme moneysavers on MSE having a go at that.

My local supermarket has recently introduced a £1 chain and lock thingy for trolleys. They have a sign saying that you can buy a token for £1 to fit the trolley to save the inconvenience of not having an actual £1 coin.

What? You are not having my £1 Mr Sainsbury's. You get more than enough out of me as it is.

Sounds ridiculous, but I can see the extreme moneysavers on MSE having a go at that.

Ahem. About 20 years ago I worked for a magazine that carried loads of food ads with money-off coupons. Mostly 10p and 20p but sometimes 50p or even £1. Nappies were good - sometimes you could get £5. I did not have a baby.

We had loads left over to be pulped and I used to pass many a quiet afternoon in the office going through them with my scissors. When I say they were my scissors, they were, of course, office ones but they may have found themselves living in my kitchen drawer .

I'd present the coupons at supermarkets at the end of the bill and people would tut at my rudeness and cheapness.

The checkout operator would scan them and seeing the bill reducing on the display with every electronic blip is one of the greatest feelings ever. My best-ever performance was saving about £15. I had a lot of coupons that day.

I would listen out for the inevitable hushed 'Wow' from someone who'd seen my bill reduce.

Checkout operators never complained. In fact some of them complimented me. They had a policy then of accepting coupons for things you hadn't bought as long as the store sold them and the till recognised them.

You can't do that any more. Some people would see that as progress - probably the people who post threads about shoppers who fumble with their change, but I am profoundly sad.

It should be illegal to price goods in anything other than round numbers

I might make a possible exception for things that are sold by weight

Not true about mushrooms, Ilkley
Even the smallest ones are about 10 cents each
You might be able to get a loose-weigh sultana or a few lentils for 2 cents
The supermarket would just need to put up a sign " minimum purchase 5 cents" or whatever to avoid the issue if it became common
But considering the fact that 2 cents represents maybe 1 second of work at minimum wage, not even tha keenest money-saving expert would spend all that long trying to save 2c, surely?

Yeah I feed them into the self service tills too. Something oddly satisfying as it feels you're getting something for nothing. Although I did have one man ask if I'd been busking!

As for £2 coins, I gave some in change through my last job. The guy was devastated. Apparently he can't spend the £2 coins and HAS to save them for Christmas

No Closer. M&S did that years ago. Said they were getting rid of the £XX.99p for the shoppers' convenience and replacing it with prices which they rounded up.

For whose convenience was that? They didn't consult me and it meant they kept a penny on every transaction.

If they'd have consulted me I'd have asked them to round down by 99 pence for my convenience.

I couldn't see that one flying.

Same with parity with the Euro and £ in shops such as Zara which is also for our convenience apparently. The Euro is 73p atm. Zara and other companies with the same policy are making money on exchange rates.

It's not illegal but they are retail business and not foreign exchange dealers, so it's a branch out from their core business.

plus I can just hear the arguments from the primary school kids who go into th sweet shop with 38p. Buying their sweets with the last bit of cash they have, adding up so they don't go over, to get to the till to be told 40p lol.

If you got rid of coppers then I'd have no savings. They used to annoy me so much I'd literally chuck them away (shocking.) but I did a round up of all the change we keep in odd pots and corners of drawers the other day and found I had £15 just lurking in my house in 1-20p pieces.

Before I clicked on this thread I though op was referring to the police