I’ve heard secondhand a tinfoil hat theory that the government wants to phase out all cash in favor of electronic transactions that can be monitored and tracked.
The conspiracy theorists truly have their heads in the right place. Let’s worry about the government trying to track all our purchases (they can do that now) rather than the anonymous, unaccountable private government army actually occupying Portland right now.
More on the aluminum shortage here:
Also we are apparently running out of lumber now.
And fishing tackles:
I’d heard about the lumber shortage locally.
But if the can shortage screws up beer…? Is there nothing this virus won’t ruin?!!
Joe Sixpack isn’t going to like that.
My local convenience store had a big sign that they needed change.
So I dropped by my 5 gallon partially filled loose change bucket.
$480 later…
The great thing is, in the past when I would use the Publix change machine, it’s like a 15% commission that they take out!
There is a little gnome inside the machine who rolls all the coins together into paper or plastic wrappers. The 15% goes to him.
I am still seeing fast food places with signs up.
Dude! That must have weighed a lot.
How long did you have to stand around waiting for them to count it? :O
I didn’t, I just returned the next day.
They know me, I regularly go there for breakfast coffee and snack.
The coin machines we have at Kroger don’t take a percentage if you use the gift card option, FYI. I figure I can always get value out of an Amazon or Lowe’s card. Not that you’ll need this advice for several more years . . .
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Kroger in Florida. At least not South Florida.
Kroger owns Lucky’s Markets in Florida.
LOL, I don’t think I’ve ever seen one of those either. Since Winn-Dixie pretty much died in South Florida almost everything is a Publix. There are a couple of new Aldis as well.
Our credit union has one of those machines with no cut. I drop my loose change in there once a year and get about $10-15.
I don’t know the last time I paid anything with cash. I write checks (for rent) more often than paying with cash.
Looks like the machines in Kroger are Coinstar (at least the one near me is). I believe you can also find them in Wal-Marts and Winn Dixies. I usually turn mine into Amazon credits.
Interestingly, you can also buy bitcoin through their machines - but not with coins, only paper cash.
I’m fascinated by this thread. I haven’t handled coins in a few years now. At all. Whenever I can I do touchless transactions, and the rest are credit card based to get 2% cashback. I have a $100 bill hidden on my person for emergencies but that’s the only paper money I’ve touched in a year or so either.
You may want to put that $100 bill in a plastic sleeve or something. You don’t know the things that might have been rolled up in it, snorted in it, whose panties they went into, etc.