Local eggs and honestly box - exact change?

[springtulips1]

Posting here for traffic.

local farm puts eggs out for sale and has an honesty box. Eggs are £1.70. We mostly use card/cashless and so sometimes have exact change but often only have £5 note or £1 or £2 coins.

do you think you should only buy with exact change? Is it acceptable to put £2 in and then pay slightly less next time? Put £5 in and take next one free and put in 10p next time?

I assume they don’t want wastage but also don’t want to be short changed! What do you think is reasonable?

This is a good idea!

You don't have to pay by card everywhere, yiubcsn still use cash, and then you will get change! Big shops might not care but as a small business cards cost us money. Its not huge (about 1.75%) but its money ud rather keep if possible. Also processing time means it doesn't land in our bank for several days meaning they are borrowing our money for free each week. Cash I carry home with me immediately!

Be honest or overpay!
Our local honesty egg seller stopped doing it, and no one ever paid properly!

There is still one hospital where I live that has pay n display machines that still only takes coins! This has thrown many people. There is an ATM and a change machine in the reception just for this.

If I know I am going to that hospital, I buy one thing at a supermarket that costs no more than £1.50. Put a note in and get change.

Sometimes when I was working at the supermarket, got customers asking for cashback as needed change as going to the said hospital. Sometimes they want £10 in coins so give them £9 in £2 and £1 and the other £1 as 1 50p 2 20ps and 10p. Plus the machines don't give out change. That way the silver coins, they can put any combination to make it 10p-90p

WHSmiths used to to have an honesty box for newspapers. I bet people placed 20p for a £2 paper.

This thread is making me 😆because not so long ago DH and I were on the way to a holiday cottage and it was maybe 11pm, and we had forgotten eggs in our food shop earlier in the day but no problem we thought...there is an egg box/honesty box right near the holiday cottage. We got there...oh no do we have change we said....so we spent probably a good 10 mins in the dark with torches and so on, trying to scrape about the car under seats to find a bit of change, finally made it to the requested £1.60 (bargain)....opened box....NO FLIPPING EGGS! I could have been in bed asleep 10 mins earlier!

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@52.5249455,-0.9331338,3a,24.6y,251.36h,87.3t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sBjD1SIF3BrFuhc-LxgULcw!2e0!5s20230901T000000!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fcb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile%26w%3D900%26h%3D600%26pitch%3D2.695669199810922%26panoid%3DBjD1SIF3BrFuhc-LxgULcw%26yaw%3D251.35680382036563!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI0MTExOC4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D

This is a vending machine that a farm about 13 miles from here does. Contactless payments. Also sells other produce and hm cakes, chutneys etc. Never been there myself.

Don't encourage admin for others to have to deal with.

Imagine there were 20 people arsing about saying they were still 2 yolks and a white in credit.

It would be a royal pain, hence why the ask for the right money

Assuming that you have a bank account, you can go into a branch and withdraw cash in coins. I'm not sure whether they still carry the smaller coins though.

Go and buy some cheap sweets in a shop and pay with a £20 note and ask for £1 coins as change. Keep the change in the car (always handy to have a trolley £1 anyway) and top up again as and when.

Bonus is that you get some sweets too, to begin with!

We have one near my work too - it's not on my way home unfortunately and too far to walk at lunchtime, but I definitely want to use it sometime!

Tell them to get a sum up machine or similar. If buskers have adapted to contactless, shops like this should too. Solves this problem, and that of some scrote emptying the cash box.

They're not a shop - it's a farm's honesty box which is probably the equivalent of a rabbit hutch at the end of their drive. Where would they get the power supply from for a start?

These are becoming really popular in Wales for milk in particular. There's one in the centre of Swansea that I use (no where near the farm, they just replenish the machine) and one in Solva that my parents use. It's a really good idea.

Yes, leave a note

It's the size of a credit card and just as portable. Cable tie it to the box, charge it once a week. Currently about a tenner to buy., a charge of 6p per transaction. Thats it. My local farm has one on their honesty box. So does my icecream van, home baker, and all the buskers, food stalls, everyone at the weekly farmers market etc.

I think the charge per transaction is another reason why they might not be keen. None of my local places have this and we all manage to pay in cash.

You were discussing whether to leave £2 instead of £1.70. Others also suggested going to that price. Get the machine, set it to take £1.80 every time a card is waved in front of it and it's all simplified and the transaction cost is covered. It seems a no-brainer to me as where I live every small business has these, no matter the size. I've even seen primary school kids selling ribbons they had made at the local jumble sale with them as they know they will sell more than if they just took cash.

I wasn't discussing it, I said to overpay if you didn't have the exact money. Yes they could build in the uplift caused by card transactions into the overall price. But also it's extra effort for a farm that are probably trying to sell their eggs in the most simplistic way possible. I am not arguing with you, I am sure there are other options, but I'm sure many places would see this as an addition faff.

I would just leave the £2 and I’m piss poor. Do people who live in areas nice enough to have fresh eggs and honesty boxes really quibble about 30p???

This happened in our village too..definitely 9/11! Maybe we're the same village. Though it must happen fairly frequently all over the world

There is a jam & chutney vendor up our road and once I saw a very angry note left saying 'to whoever took the... without paying, take a good look in the mirror'. The box is locked so you need to have the correct change. I thought what if they were going to pay later . But guessing they never did pay up.

Please just stick a note in the box suggesting they up the price to 2 quid!

Work out the cost per egg and take what you're paying for.

If 1.70 is for 6 then £2 gets you seven. It's an honesty box. Honesty goes both ways.

You don't need any power.

Honesty boxes round here include a revolut handle and QR code, so you can rev them the money. So much easier that way. I buy eggs and flowers

If you know the eggs are £1.70 have the right money or leave. £2.