Yutang Lin Coins are cumbersome to carry. Even with a coin purse it is still heavy and not very comfortable to carry in pockets. Thus people often just put them aside somewhere and let them sit accumulated. Nowadays there are coin machines in supermarkets that will allow one to pour coins into it and get bills in return at the cost of a fee. I try to use my coins, so I use a coin purse and bring it to shopping whenever I remember to do so. But soon it became heavy and cumbersome to carry. So I gave this matter a thought. Actually for each purchase in cash one needs only 99 cents in coins if one were to use one's coins. (Over that it will be in the bills territory.) Observing along this line, one needs only 4 pennies, 2 nickels, and 1 dime. So, for each purchase I need bring only these coins plus 3 quarters. In this way my coins will gradually be used while the coin purse remains light and easy to carry along in my pocket. I live in USA, so the coins mentioned are US coins. But the same principle can apply to the coins of other countries. May the sharing of this observation lighten the pockets of many without any financial loss to them, and render coins everywhere more frequently spent! October 4, 2014 Addendum: Having put this observation into practice I noticed some advantages that I did not think of in advance. On the one hand, I always give exact change in the coins part, and on the other hand, I get only bills back in changes. So, coins accumulated in the past will be used and diminish in size while my pocket will no longer be weighted down by new accumulation of coins. October 29, 2014 |