I grew up in the 90s and aughts. These containers were frequently around cash registers in convenience stores and perhaps other small businesses. I don’t remember them being so consistently branded, but my experience then would have been limited to going into a handful of stores in the same locale. Of course, Canada ditched pennies (1 cent pieces) from cash transactions just over 10 years ago (we now round for cash transactions).
A penny felt like a meaningful amount of money to me as a child. More than anything, when I look back at them, these little containers stimulated my understanding of karma and perhaps theory of mind (e.g., mentalizing a future customer helping themself to an available penny and how they’d feel as a result). Looking back, I think that’s pretty neat.
I don’t know why, but these things popped into my head as I was doing the dishes. I was assured that, thankfully, there’s a Lemmy community for this :D
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They’re still here in the US. I usually drop any pennies I get as change in them, sometimes nickels too, as I know it’s appreciated by struggling folks and I rarely carry cash or change at all anymore. Hardly counts as charity though, I just don’t want them on me.
They seem to have all been replaced with tip jars around here. Sharing is unfashionable now, greed is all the rage.
Is it the 1980s already?
Greed is good ™️
They are all around here. The US will never get rid of them as we’ve got a big corporation that keeps lobbying for pennies to keep being made. That company by the way is the company that makes the blanks for pennies. So they’ll stick around forever, since the lobbying effort is cheaper then coming up with a new business plan that doesn’t involve survival on the governments dime(or penny as it were).
I stopped picking up pennies. It’s no longer worth the time or effort to get them.
We didn’t have these in the UK.
So you leave change for people hard up?
Hard up, a kid wanting candy, or anyone a few pennies short so they don’t have to use another dollar and end up with more change.
And even ‘hard up’ is a bit extreme, but if a single parent is getting hot dog buns and is fifteen cents short, they’d usually take those pennies, just to give you an idea what we mean.
It’s more like leave change for people whose total came out to $5.03 and don’t want a handful of coins to carry around
If you bring home your change and dump it in a jar 4-5 years later you’ll make small bank. Still, your efforts to help are commendable and logical.
If you bring home your change and dump it in a jar 4-5 years later you’ll make small bank.
I think I’ve done maybe 10 cash transactions in that timeframe, not enough to make even the tiniest of bank.
How big is your jar?
Mine’s a medium sized mason jar, maybe taller. Holds about $80-$100 in change I think. It’s been a while since I cashed it out.
Yeah, I do keep a change jar still. It’s only for those take a penny type things that I leave them.
I used to roll all my extra change and save it for something fun, but I barely use cash any more, so it’s not worth the effort now. Although, I’ve been starting to use cash again, because I am sick and fucking tired of literally every single POS terminal begging for tips, often with preset bullshit like 30-40%. Fuck yoooouuuu!
Nice. I was using coinstar before. If you cash out to say an Amazon gift card instead of straight cash there was no fee! Worth it then.
Yeah, the tipping is ridiculous these days.
I bought a little machine that you’d dump the coins into the top, then spin a little handle, and it would sort them. Then I’d just roll them, and take them to the bank for cash when I wanted to do something fun. I still have $50 in rolled coins in my closet from years ago. Too bad it has probably lost 40% of its value in the last few years. LOL
Oh no! But, you did it! That’s what counts? Lol
Makes for a good story at least. Thanks for sharing.
Ditto. It’s very rare I have cash. Then I typically leave it as tip the next chance. But, if I ever use cash and get coins, I dump them all into this dish.
I used to wildly break the social contract with these and take all the pennies and never leave any.
Most people only leave pennies and never take them. Without kind people like you, the poor cashiers would be buried in pennies.
I’ve taken a few pennies before. If something is like $8.02. Who the hell carries $0.02?
