No coins, please
Posted by Beckie | Filed under Beckie
“No Coins, please” is not just a tribute to one of my favourite children’s authors, Gordon Korman. Last November I read a story online somewhere and it stuck with me, for more reasons than one. Here’s the gist… An American woman went to the grocery store with $32 in change and attempted to purchase groceries. Apparently she scrounged around the house for the money. Two grocery stores refused her method of payment; according to the story it is optional as to whether a store accepts certain forms of payment.
Why didn’t she go to the bank? No bank within walking distance and no money for gas. This also ruled out the possibility of rolling change properly.
Why didn’t she use the change machine in the grocery store? Because it takes about a 10% fee for using the machine, an amount she couldn’t afford to give up.
Why do stores care? I don’t know for sure but I have a feeling these kinds of policies are put into effect after customers who have to wait in the long line-up behind someone paying with change start raising a ruckus.
What happened to patience is a virtue? I wish I knew the answer to that question.
Why am I so defensive about this? Mea culpa
About a year ago I went on a cross-border shopping trip to Niagara Falls with my friend. This was primarily for me to indulge myself with a few cases of Cherry Coke. From infrequent trips over the past few years, I had accumulated about $12 in U.S. change. The Canadian banks won’t accept U.S. change, so I was stuck with it. My choices were quite simple: spend it or throw it away.
At the Gymboree outlet I found a pair of pants for $11.xx and started to count out my change. Luckily no one was behind me in the line-up until the very end of the transaction. My friend, let’s call her Wanda, helped me count it out, several times actually. Multiple choice test: did the sales associate do any of the following?
a) Look bored and mad, simultaneously
b) Not help us with the counting
c) Confirm several times that I was a Canadian who rarely shopped in the store
d) All of the above
Yes, folks the correct answer is (d). Did I *pretend* to feel bad? Yeah, I did. Did I really feel bad? Heck, no…in my mind, money is money and if we weren’t all so used to paying with credit cards and bank cards, counting out some change wouldn’t be a big deal.
My daughter (age 2) wore those pants a ton of times before they got too small. She looked awesome in them 
In her late 30s, with a husband and two small children, she lives in the ‘burbs of Toronto. A librarian, Beckie works part-time. In her free time, “I am a chauffeur/part-time cook/boo boo kisser/housecleaner and laundry lady extraordinaire. I do most of the household shopping and financial planning.”
February 20, 2012 at 7:24 am
I remember that story too, it made me very angry. I was a cashier for years and I know it can be frustrating to count large amounts of change but it was part of my job. I felt so bad for that woman, she was in a tough spot financially and then to have stores refuse her money must have been very upsetting. I’m glad she got the media attention she did. Too often when people of limited means are mistreated they don’t speak up for themselves. I hope the cashiers who refused her money feel terrible. As for the management of those stores arguing it would take too long, most grocery stores have change machines in the office so counting it would have taken seconds. People really do need to have more patience, and to be more respectful of each other. What happened to empathy?
February 20, 2012 at 8:27 am
In this world these days, it seems that everyone is in a hurry to do everything, yet no one has time to enjoy anything. Thanks for the reminder to slow down and enjoy life – and Happy Family Day.
February 20, 2012 at 8:33 am
Of course Canadian banks take u.s. coin…they just don’t pay exchange on it…but you can certainly use it to deposit to your account or trade in for Canadian currency…
February 20, 2012 at 9:06 am
Thank you for your comments.
Sparky-I was definitely refused by my bank when I brought in my small bag of U.S. change, just told “we don’t accept US Change”, perhaps because it wasn’t rolled.
I just googled “do banks accept US change?” and came across a message board with quite a variety of responses. Some banks didn’t care and gave corresponding Cdn $ at par, some refused like my bank, some wanted it rolled (I didn’t have enough change to roll it), some people “hid” it…
Hope everyone has a good holiday.
February 20, 2012 at 9:14 am
An excellent reminder on Family Day (in Ontario, Canada) that we need to slow down, pay attention to what is happening around us, show empathy and truly care about each other. Surely others in the line up could have replaced the coin for folding money and helped this woman get her groceries. I know that I would have as would many if not all of my friends. How well I remember the days when we would scrounge our loose change hiding places and cash in returnable bottles to purchase a needed quart of milk or loaf of bread. Stores would do well to provide a service for anyone wanting their loose change converted to folding money.
February 20, 2012 at 9:17 am
Hm. I wonder why the grocery stores don’t take a page out of good ole’ Canadian Tire’s book. If you have a large amount of CT money to redeem, you have to take it to the customer service desk to be counted before you can spend it. Why don’t these stores just count the change for the woman, give her a voucher as to how much money it is and then let her shop. That way, she could get her groceries, the store would get there money and no one would have to wait in line behind someone counting out change.
February 20, 2012 at 12:39 pm
this is good advice Katie, hubby and I have been saving CT money since we got together about three years ago, and I fully plan on buying something awesome one day with it. (one day being the operative word in there, considering we only shop for one or two christmas things a year) but its going to be interesting when we walk in to cash that pile of paper!
February 21, 2012 at 4:02 pm
I seriously cashed in around $100 in CT money and another $100 in gift cards for a new BBQ for my hubby and I for Mothers/Fathers day last year… they were FANTASTIC about it counting it all out right at the til… we even had a little cheering squad around us… very cool feeling to be able to surprise hubby with it and not spend a ton of cash on a new BBQ
February 20, 2012 at 10:00 am
When my husband and I lived in London, England we were given a car by one of my co-workers (it is cheaper to give away cars in the uk then to pay the environment fee it cost to dispose of a car). The guy at work didn’t think the car would get us far but we ended up touring Europe with it. We were really tight on cash. My husband, a teacher, got paid once a month and half of what a british teacher would make. I ended up going to grad school. Basically we acted before we thought and we were poor. We went to put 10 pounds in the car and we had no money left in our account to pay for it. We went through the guy coming out and writing down our plate number. We promised that we would pay ASAP. We went back to our flat and searched. We went through everything and came up with exactly 10′pounds in coin. I’ll never forget going back in with a bag of coins and the guy behind the counter counting. After he got to 5 pounds he looked at us and said it’s fine, don’t worry about it. I remember the relief we felt and a bit more like we were a part of the inner city community where we were living. After that the guys at the station called us Canada when ever we went and would talk to us about life in Canada. I should say that our area of London had no British people at the gas station was owned by a family from afganistan. Sometimes hard times can bring people together. Sometimes it separates us out.
February 20, 2012 at 12:42 pm
At work people generally pay me in fist fulls of change because, hey, its coffee. And my money counting skills are not the quickest. Theyre often apologetic and I am sure to make them feel like its okay. I am not concerned if its not exact because it will get made up somewhere else in the long run.
Course this attitude stems from the radical idea that money doesn’t control us.
Happy family day Ontario, hopefully we will be able to enjoy it over here on the west coast one day!
February 20, 2012 at 2:49 pm
OMG! I used to run a laundromat and I encouraged all my customers to come to me with all their change! I didn’t care if you walked in with $20 in pennies! It was money. Usually I would stand there counting forever or get the customer to help out with rolling. Most times they have already pre-counted and brought the money in baggies. This way they got the loonies they needed to wash or bought junk food from me. I rarely every exchanged change for cash unless it was loonies or toonies. We are in a small community so my change never went to the bank. If I had a bunch of excess change I went to the local businesses and sold it to them. They always needed small change. I used to actually keep a jar for US change but it never got past $10 and I still have it sitting on the shelf.
February 21, 2012 at 2:32 am
I was a Cashier and Customer Service representative at Canadian Tire for four years, and I did not care how a person paid for the purchase. I loved customers that had copious amounts of change due the fact it would save me from asking for more later on. What I disliked was the others behind young children carefully paying for a toy, or a senior using her coin purse instead of breaking another bill, pushing them just to stand there while expecting me to unload their basket whist they continue their conversation on a cell phone.
Counting pennies is one of the first mathematical skills I teach my students, and waiting their turn is an important social skill. Remember this when you are behind a person next time that is counting out their correct change. Take that moment to breathe. You may be that person one day when the debit/credit machines are down.
February 21, 2012 at 6:11 pm
People shouldn’t knock change! hubby and I used to throw our change in jars and when we found out we were expecting, he said: “That’s the baby’s money”. By the time she was born, we had over $800.00. When we added gifts, etc. we were able to start her with an $1100.00 RESP!
I think the people who have no patience should start saving their change and see how fast it adds up!
February 21, 2012 at 8:56 pm
We too save all of our change and keep our american coin separate. Its good to have the change for tolls and items that you dont want to pay debit for.
We put all of our change in savings, a couple times a year we roll it up and deposit into the bank. Its usually around a $100 when we do this.
When I was a cashier I would love to get change, I would always end up needing some, of course I always had to count it at the end of the shift, no counting machines for me.
PS. Gordon Kormon is one of my favourite childhood authors, I still buy his books from thrift stores.