1p and 2p

guitars4you

I can still recall the 1/2 penny or apney depending where you are from - But it looks like time will soon be up for our copper friends - Request that no more to be minted

I keep all my 1p and 2p ‘s in a coffee jar - Then bag and bank them when the jar is full 

Do like wise with 5/10/20 and 50p coins- Again in different jars 

Whitecat

If you've been to Australia or Canada over the past... well, quite a while now, you can see the system where the copper no longer exists in use! If you're a heavy cash user, because of the rounding, some transactions you come out ahead, some you don't... I suppose it probably averages out over the course of a year.

At the moment I dump all the chicken feed change from my pockets into self-service machines at supermarkets. Those occasions may vanish...

Grampa

Shove ha'penny is a fond memory from my childhood, and that was in old money. I still remember farthings, thrupenny bits and silver sixpences!

Deadman

I saved up all my 1’s, 2’s, 5’s, 10’s and 20’s for about three years once. I took the biggest, heaviest bag of coins to the machine for a big cash-in just before Christmas. I’m thinking US Strat territory at the time, but won’t be disappointed with a MIM Tele. 

Then £85 emerged. 

BillDL

If they are effectively doing away with 1p and 2p coins, then everthing should be rounded down to the nearest 5p.  Even if this did happen the retailers would round it up to the nearest 5p and you would be losing out on 6p on £xx.99 transactions rather than just 1p.

WezV

Hold on a sec... they only said they are not producing any this year because they already have enough in circulation.


They have not been scrapped yet

Whitecat

BillDL said:

If they are effectively doing away with 1p and 2p coins, then everthing should be rounded down to the nearest 5p.  Even if this did happen the retailers would round it up to the nearest 5p and you would be losing out on 6p on £xx.99 transactions rather than just 1p.

They will round up or down to the nearest 5p - at least that’s how it works in other countries. It means if something is £4.99 and you pay £5 you get no change, but if your shop works out to £4.97 you get 5p back from £5. 

One thing is that nothing on shelves at cash-heavy places will be priced at x.96 or x.97 anymore. Bigger firms may not care so much mind. 

Whitecat

WezV said:

Hold on a sec... they only said they are not producing any this year because they already have enough in circulation.


They have not been scrapped yet

It’ll come. 

HAL9000

So if time’s up for copper coins does that mean the price of just about everything I buy will get rounded up (I don’t imagine they’ll rounded down)? OK, doesn’t sound a lot of money but for, say, a supermarket that’s a lot of extra income for them (at the expense of their customers).

guitars4you

You can imagine a young kid, in years time, finding one in an old draw in your home- Then asking you  ‘ grandad is that 2p or not 2p ‘

rlw

Rounding up or down, does it matter?  We should just price in multiples of 5p.  And even 5p is pretty much worth nothing.

RaymondLin

Everything will be rounded up if the penny is abolished, naturally. 

merlin

I used to have a badge that said "bring back the farthing" when I was a kid. 

drofluf

Canada abolished the cent in 2013 although it still remains legal tender. Items are (or were, I haven't been there for a while) are still priced in cents and the total bill is then rounded. If you pay by credit card you pay the exact amount.

The only things I use coins for regularly are to pay for a local toll bridge, it's 5p when they have staff on and in the trolley at the supermarket.

sev112

It would be good if we could take all of ours to the banks and get them changed 

except there are hardly any banks any more, and those that do exist don’t seem to like giving or taking money for some reason

at least it’s only a few quid when one adds it all up , phew !

viz

Grampa said:

Shove ha'penny is a fond memory from my childhood, and that was in old money. I still remember farthings, thrupenny bits and silver sixpences!

Sounds like you need to upgrade your username to Great Grampa. 

snowblind

Eventually even the billion pound coin will become obsolete. The joys of operating in a financial system which is essentially an unbalanced equation whereby the numbers just get bigger. 

thumpingrug

Of course, we could all pay with cards and wireless payment systems then it doesn't matter.  

blobb

i'm still waiting for the 0.9p coin to come out so I can buy a litre of petrol.

boogieman

thumpingrug said:

Of course, we could all pay with cards and wireless payment systems then it doesn't matter.  

There’s times when you still need cash though… the odd tip for good service, charity collection tins. I’ve mentioned this before but our neighbour collects round the local area for Poppy Day. It’s hardly worth him having a card reader for a couple of weeks of the year, but even if he did the mobile signal where we live is virtually nonexistent. 

ICBM

I manage a shop now, and counting the damned things at till totalling time every day is a bit of a pain -  quite a faff for very little gain. We’ve eliminated non-5p prices for shelf stock items, but the products sold by weight still end up with penny pricing, so we do need to keep the coppers for change for the 10-20% of buyers who still use cash. I’d like to investigate whether we could legitimately round up to the nearest 5p, either per item or on the total.