AIBU to hate paying with a £50 note?

[CocoDeMoll]

This really isn’t a ‘ my diamond shoes are too tight’ type post I’m a Friends fan actually the opposite. Unexpectedly dh is jobless and I’m on mat leave so trying not to use our cards at all. We’re using his cash which is all £50 (from the unofficial redundancy settlement) for things and paying for the Tesco shop or even worse, a pack of battery’s and two 25p tea towels in the pound shop is raising eyebrows like we’ve nicked it or are using fakes. I can’t wait till we’ve broken a fifty and then can use ‘normal’ money for everything else. Is it normal to get looks for using £50 or is it because we’re obviously not rich that’s raising suspicion?

none of the shops round here will take them. Perhaps you'd be better to take it to bank and ask them to change it

They're probably just pissed off you're emptying their tills of change.

They make a big show of checking it and looking at us! Maybe they’re just pissed off.

Put the cash in your account and use a card

Yeah shops hate giving away all their change. Change them at the post office or bank.

Yep they won't be happy at giving away all their change. Pop into your bank and break the notes up.

Also of course they check them, if they were fake it's a big hit to a shop. When I worked in a pub we had to check every £20 note and weren't allowed to accept £50s

Take it to the bank and ask for tenners.

Nice problem to have TBH!

What don’t you just make a deposit?

I would if it was my money but dh doesn’t see the point and isn’t bothered by it.

Surely it's both your money

Her DH has lost his job Droning - hardly a nice problem to have!

How much is there?

Can you spend most of it in the self service tills at the supermarket? Go through more than once to get rid of them a few at a time.

There’s not loads at all. It’s just me that feels awkward I think. I just wondered if other people feel like this too?

Most stores have to have a member of management check a 50 that they receive as counterfeits are common and some are really good quality!

Self service tills don't tend to accept them. The last (and only) time I had one, the supervisor of the self service till had to go to the customer service bit to exchange them for other notes

I used to work in retail and have to double check them, most people seem uncomfortable to be honest, I doubt it's just you, I probably would too!

Most self service tills won't take them. I'm surprised really, £50 is hardly a lot these days IYSWIM but they're still treated like they're a huge amount. (No diamond shoes here either, sadly)

@DroningOn becoming jobless is a nice problem to have?!

When I was a child (40 years ago) £50 notes were checked carefully at tills, but many businesses accepted them. They weren't rare, or considered scarily high value. I worked in various Saturday jobs, so remember this well. My dad had them in his wages and broke thrm easily. 40 years later, £50 notes are considered high value and shops are worried about fakes. Some traders won't take them. If my food, rent and utilities are 4-5 times higher than when I was a child, why isn't a £50 note devalued by the same amount? Because wages for lower earners have stagnated for decades?

Use them when you're making bigger purchases, then keep the change for small stuff? But also, it's not that big a deal. If you're paying for a 50p item with a tenner, it's annoying because they have to give you all the change in coins. If you pay for that same item with a £50 note, it's not really any more inconvenient for the shop. They'll have £40 in other notes.

I don't think I've ever seen a £50 note - and I'm in my 40s

@DianaT1969

But the majority of transactions now are cashless, and £50 notes are rare because the chances of high value transactions being made in cash are even lower. Therefore, people aren't familiar with them, so would struggle to identify a counterfeit (especially as the design isn't updated as regularly as lower value notes)

I’m with you, Op, hate changing them and getting ‘the look’.
As pp’s say, self service fills won’t take them.
I agree with DianaT - they should be more commonplace now and less easy to counterfeit.
As for ‘taking all the change out of the till’ I remember apologising in a shop in Switzerland for giving a 100Sfr note for a fairly small amount, and being told that the shops are obliged to be able to give change and could get into trouble for not being able to do so. Also use 50€ and 100€ notes in Europe without anyone seeming annoyed or concerned.

I was always worried about them when I worked in retail, so it's not you, OP!
In terms of devaluing, I think it's that people don't use cash for large amounts these days. A couple of hundred years ago you got £5 notes. Jane Eyre's annual salary was only £30! There's no equivalent of that fiver now.