Get pants with better pockets.

Spend change instead of just collecting it by spending bills.

Collect your huge amount of change (remember, pennies don't exist anymore in my scenario, so you shouldn't have THAT much change) at the end of the day and turn it into cash money at the bank or grocery store every few weeks.

Besides, with the amount it costs to collect and destroy old dollar bills every couple of years, and then print new ones, minting coins that can last for 20 years in heavy circulation is a money saver for the gov't, and therefore you the citizen.

Where do you keep all this change?

Seriously, if it doesn't fit in my wallet I'd rather not have to carry it around all day.

Some of my parents friends live in Austria and they aren't at all fans of dollar coins, especially because the smallest commonly used denomination note is like 10 euroes or something. I for one try to avoid change like the plague, and don't particularly mind dollar notes. What I do mind is this newfangled euro trash funny money. Give me back my greenbacks, damn it!

I debit as much as possible.

You don't keep it, you spend it, just like paper dollars. It's not like people walk around with a dozen dollar coins in their pocket any more than you walk around with 14 one dollar bills.

I don't know man, this sounds like a good way to lose a lot of money to car seats and sofas.

This is what I try to do, but I always feel like such a douche buying a $2 Vitamin water at the gas station with a debit card.

I don't know, man, nearly all of the change that I "lose" in such places are dimes, nickels and pennies. I almost never lose a quarter for long because they're bigger. Dollar coins are even slightly larger, and significantly heavier. Not much net difference over time, I'd bet.

Me too. I believe electronic payment will eventually phase out hard currency, but that's quite a ways down the road.

Some jerk stole my debit card like a month ago. Needless to say I'm rather traumatized regarding electronic payment.

i think doing away with the dollar bill would be a nightmare. could you imagine working the cash registers at, say, target or wal mart during the christmas season. you're gonna have 2 tons of coins by the end of the day.

It's nothing they don't run into now with quarters.

no way man. everybody's holding on to all those new quarters cause they're gonna be worth something one day.

i know a few people who hoard up all these new "state" quarters, including my mom. she's got a 5 gallon jug full of them. i try to tell her "mom those are gonna be worth 25 cents long after your dead. use that cash on a vacation or something". but she insists they're gonna make her rich one day, and i'm sure that's the same kind of thinking all these other collectors have as well.

paper>coins

I can think of very few instances where i've lost any $1 or $2 dollar coins. They're bigger, and worth more so you tend to hold on to them a bit tighter than you would a pocket full of nickels.

One upside is that you will never find a vending machine that refuses to accept your coin unless it is bent down the middle. I can't stand trying to flatten a crinkled, torn dollar out so i can get a fucking juice.

Lately i've been dumping all my change in a jar at the end of the day (including $1's and $2's) and after a few months i always have like $70-80. It's a pretty sweet return for doing nothing, and it would take a lot longer when just using small denomonations of coins.

The downside of the coins is that when you go to a strip club you have to start whipping out the 5-sheets. For some reason strippers don't like having coins thrown at them .

I would much rather have $12 in toonies in my pocket than 12 ones stacked in my wallet. Every time i go to the US it always gives me this false sense of wealth to have a big fat wallet, but in reality have like $20 or $30 in there.

It's been almost 20 years since Canada phased out the dollar bill, and i wouldn't go back. I've even heard talk of phasing out the 5, but that may be a bit extreme.

Duck, bitch!


If you think about it, not really. A denomination based on 5 (5c, $5, $50, etc...) is rare compared to one based on 1 or 2. This is because it only takes 2 of them to equal the next larger denomonation. How often do you have more than one $5 bill in your pocket at a time? A lot less often than you have more than one $1 or $10 or $20, I'd bet. So what's the big deal about a $5 coin? You'd probably almost never have more than one or two in your pocket at a time.

You make a good point. Unfortunately, if they got rid of the 5 i think we'd see a lot more strippers driving Jag's.

As well they should.

http://money.cnn.com/2006/11/20/news/do ... tm?cnn=yes

U.S. mint pushes new $1 coin
Hopes that images of past presidents will entice consumers to break their reluctance to dollar coins; Nixon coin slated for 2016.
November 20 2006: 10:29 AM EST


WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- The U.S. Mint is hoping that Martin Van Buren and Millard Fillmore can do what Susan B. Anthony and Sacagawea couldn't - get Americans to use dollar coins.

The Mint on Monday revealed the design of the new U.S. $1 coin, which will be issued in a series that will eventually include the faces of each U.S. president.


Design of the new $1 coin, part of series that will include the faces of each U.S. President.

It will release four new presidential dollars each year, starting with George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison in 2007. The Van Buren dollar will be released in 2008 and the Fillmore in 2010.

Richard M. Nixon, who resigned in disgrace in 1974 in the wake of the Watergate scandal, will appear on the coin in 2016.

The Mint is hoping the continually changing faces will entice consumers to break their traditional reluctance to use dollar coins.

"We think Americans are going to want to collect the series, and that will drive the coins through the economy," said U.S. Mint Director Edmund Moy.

He hopes to avoid the fate of the Susan B. Anthony dollar, which was issued in 1979-81 and again in 1999 to honor the women's sufferage pioneer. But due to its size and silver color, it was too easily confused with a quarter and is now largely distributed as change from mass transit system ticket machines.

The gold color Sacagawea dollar followed in 2000, showing the Native American guide to 1804 explorers Merriwether Lewis and William Clark and her infant son.

But limited Sacagawea quantities led to too many being stashed away by collectors, reducing circulation and thus familiarity, said Rod Gillis, head of education at the American Numismatic Association in Colorado Springs, Colo.

The presidential dollar coin will be similar in size and color to the Sacagawea, but will bear no inscription on the obverse or face side. "In God We Trust," "E Pluribus Unum," the issue year and the mint mark will appear on the edge.

Although he said the coins will be a boon for collectors and teaching children about past presidents, its success will be limited by Americans' attachment to paper dollars.

"As long as we have the paper currency out there, dollar coins will never be successful," Gillis said. "We're going to have to discard the $1 bill or mass produce so many of these coins so they'll be out there at retailers."

Moy said the Mint's successful 50-state quarters program helped push usage of the coins as even collectors spent their duplicate versions. He is hoping that the presidential dollars will be freely spent as well.

Parking meter effect

Also helping prospects for the coin is inflation, he said, noting that parking meter prices are a dollar or more per hour in many cities and snack machine prices are rising, too.

In fact, the vending machine industry could save $1 billion from a full switch to dollar coins by eliminating costly maintenance on balky bill acceptance slots, he said.

The U.S. Treasury also could save billions from a switch because coins last 30 to 40 years in circulation compared to about 18 months for paper currency. A number of other countries, such as the United Kingdom, use coins exclusively for their single-unit currencies.

However, Congress' 2005 act to create the new dollar coin specifies that the program is not intended to supplant the paper dollar bill.

Moy said the Mint "has learned a lot" from past dollar coin efforts and will be working more closely with the Federal Reserve to match supply of the coins with demand.

However, it will face a dilemma sometime in the next decade if it sticks to its four presidents-a-year schedule. The law specifies no living former president can appear on a coin, but chances are high that Bill Clinton and George W. Bush will still be alive when it comes time for their dollars in 2017.

-------------------------------------------------------------

Obviously the mint has not learned the most important lesson, which is that for a dollar coin to be fully successful, you have to eliminate the dollar bill.

We have automated ticket machines for the T now (our subway). If you put in a 20 dollar bill for 5 dollars worth of tickets, you get 15 one dollar coins back. Great.