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To cycle back, no one counts out change anymore. The rounding rules are built into the cash registers here so they enter the amount you give them and the till does the rest.
true... but when that happens.... they often give you back the "extra" (the $1.14 you have them on your $11.14 bill), put $20 into the machine, and count out the $8 in bills while the change machine spits 86 cents at me. The cashier remains stupid, and I am increasing frustrated.
I've noticed that some businesses set their prices to have "non-penny" amounts - including taxes - particularly bars. For bars or restaurants it's easier to set those prices because of how drinks are priced and taxed. Grocery stores are more complicated because different products are taxed at different rates. A few gas station/convenience stores around here seem to round down - if I give them $5.00 for a $4.82 purchase they give me back twenty cents.
Exactly. That did cross my mind. (I saw RGIO's post but not yours. I guess his came seconds before yours)
To cycle back, no one counts out change anymore. The rounding rules are built into the cash registers here so they enter the amount you give them and the till does the rest.
So if you go to McDâs and your changes is between 1&4¢ and they no longer have pennies in their registers does that consists of theft?
And if you take into account that 50 million, on average, go in for food daily and donât get their change and we average it out to 2¢ each thatâs $1 million in their pockets for free or $365 million a year
A very lucrative deal for the man. Now multiply that to all the other businesses you shop at. Thatâs just a staggering amount of white collar theft.
Makes you go hmmm.
They already round things like fuel prices. When was the last time you gave them your 0.9 cent coin? Maccas could equally well raise their prices to a round number so it is pretty silly to complain even if they were to only round up. Just think of it as inflation. And if you don't want to take part, pay with your card.
Benford's law has been used for years to identify fraud. Appreciating that's a first digit calc that ignores zero, the rule would still clarify the idea that all digits at the end are not created equal. 9 would be exceedingly rare if it weren't for it's marketing value.
As for tax, a lot of the small value tax calculations are done as imputed values, so the retailer lists a product as $1 and includes the 6% sales tax on their 94 cent item... just so they could avoid dealing with pennies. At some point... cash becomes much less common (purchases over $50....$100...?)... so who cares if it ends in 3 or 8.
"Perhaps the most important finding from the data with respect to rounding is that survey respondents reported that 72 percent of their cash payments already end with 0 (zero) pennies."
Seeing that pennies range from 0 to 9, you'd think the odds of payments already ending with zero would be roughly 10%. So this 'finding' is rather odd (pun intended). If all survey respondents live in a taxless State and are shopping at a Dollar store, then ok.
Benford's law has been used for years to identify fraud. Appreciating that's a first digit calc that ignores zero, the rule would still clarify the idea that all digits at the end are not created equal. 9 would be exceedingly rare if it weren't for it's marketing value.
As for tax, a lot of the small value tax calculations are done as imputed values, so the retailer lists a product as $1 and includes the 6% sales tax on their 94 cent item... just so they could avoid dealing with pennies. At some point... cash becomes much less common (purchases over $50....$100...?)... so who cares if it ends in 3 or 8.
"Perhaps the most important finding from the data with respect to rounding is that survey respondents reported that 72 percent of their cash payments already end with 0 (zero) pennies."
Seeing that pennies range from 0 to 9, you'd think the odds of payments already ending with zero would be roughly 10%. So this 'finding' is rather odd (pun intended). If all survey respondents live in a taxless State and are shopping at a Dollar store, then ok.
I've noticed that some businesses set their prices to have "non-penny" amounts - including taxes - particularly bars. For bars or restaurants it's easier to set those prices because of how drinks are priced and taxed. Grocery stores are more complicated because different products are taxed at different rates. A few gas station/convenience stores around here seem to round down - if I give them $5.00 for a $4.82 purchase they give me back twenty cents.
"Perhaps the most important finding from the data with respect to rounding is that survey respondents reported that 72 percent of their cash payments already end with 0 (zero) pennies."
Seeing that pennies range from 0 to 9, you'd think the odds of payments already ending with zero would be roughly 10%. So this 'finding' is rather odd (pun intended). If all survey respondents live in a taxless State and are shopping at a Dollar store, then ok.
As mentioned in the link in RGIO's post, the proposed rounding rules are the same as what you noted above. Also in that link, it points out that only 14% of consumer payments were cash transactions in the US in 2024.
Thanks for the heads up. I actually missed that post.
Don't know if this is for all of Canada and for every store, but how it works in our penniless country is this: amounts gets rounded, up or down. So .01 or .02 become .00, and .03 or .04 become .05. But that's only if you pay cash, If you pay by debit or credit, you're charged the exact amount. Now, i'm not aware of this but i guess some stores might round up/down before they charge your card, i've not come across that. So when rounding up or down on cash transaction, that means on average it evens out.
So no lucrative deal for the man. Unless, like i said, some stores do it differently. Like maybe round everything up, although it's not supposed to be done that way.
As mentioned in the link in RGIO's post, the proposed rounding rules are the same as what you noted above. Also in that link, it points out that in the US in 2024, only 14% of consumer payments were cash transactions, and 21.3 percent of all payments that were made in-person were cash payments.
So if you go to McDâs and your changes is between 1&4¢ and they no longer have pennies in their registers does that consists of theft?
And if you take into account that 50 million, on average, go in for food daily and donât get their change and we average it out to 2¢ each thatâs $1 million in their pockets for free or $365 million a year
A very lucrative deal for the man. Now multiply that to all the other businesses you shop at. Thatâs just a staggering amount of white collar theft.
Makes you go hmmm.
Don't know if this is for all of Canada and for every store, but how it works in our penniless country is this: amounts gets rounded, up or down. So .01 or .02 become .00, and .03 or .04 become .05. But that's only if you pay cash, If you pay by debit or credit, you're charged the exact amount. Now, i'm not aware of this but i guess some stores might round up/down before they charge your card, i've not come across that. So when rounding up or down on cash transaction, that means on average it evens out.
So no lucrative deal for the man. Unless, like i said, some stores do it differently. Like maybe round everything up, although it's not supposed to be done that way.
Location: On the edge of tomorrow looking back at yesterday Gender:
Posted:
Jan 3, 2026 - 8:30am
So if you go to McDâs and your changes is between 1&4¢ and they no longer have pennies in their registers does that consists of theft?
And if you take into account that 50 million, on average, go in for food daily and donât get their change and we average it out to 2¢ each thatâs $1 million in their pockets for free or $365 million a year
A very lucrative deal for the man. Now multiply that to all the other businesses you shop at. Thatâs just a staggering amount of white collar theft.
We haven't had pennies for yonks. If a purchase comes out to a few cents more than a multiple of 5, it gets rounded.
I have been known to buy things on my card, just so I don't end up with the change. Which reminds me, I have a bag of coins I need to remember to take to the farmers market where the Country Fire Authority volunteers collect change.
Oh and also since they aren't making pennies anymore, I'm going to have to go to remedial school to sort things out again.
We haven't had pennies for yonks. If a purchase comes out to a few cents more than a multiple of 5, it gets rounded.
I have been known to buy things on my card, just so I don't end up with the change. Which reminds me, I have a bag of coins I need to remember to take to the farmers market where the Country Fire Authority volunteers collect change.
Just to be clear, SFW is offering an alternative, not a requirement. I "can" use my phone to control my devices, but I really dislike it, even though it has more options. I prefer a remote. You can buy "universal" ones for most anything now... $10 on Amazon (the only place to buy a lot of things now.... that's a separate thread....). Seems odd to spend $500+ on an 8 foot wide TV and have to consider replacing the credit card sized remote... but...
Regarding discussion, talk to text, and interaction... you're 1000% correct.
AI is the final straw, and I'm hopeful that very soon, all electronics will be removed from children in school. Everything. We've spent the past 30 years thinking that to use the tools better, you had to learn "with them". Nothing could be further from the truth. Kids today, as a group, are not as intelligent as we were in the 60s and 70s. They can do some amazing things with technology, and there are still a large number of really bright kids... but the bottom 60%-70% no longer have basic skills that were plentiful half a century ago. Even those who didn't graduate high school (ie my grandfather) had solid math and language skills. Some of those skills bound us in ways we never appreciated or imagined.
My favorite example these days.... go buy something and when paying for your $11.16 item hand the cashier $21.26. You and I both know what we want. At most stores now with anyone under 40 running the register... pull up a chair. As you pointed out...we're eliminating some of the tricky math with the penny, and when cash is gone altogether it won't matter... but there is a subtle connection and understanding in that moment when the buyer and cashier were communicating. We knew the goals... quicker checkout for the cashier.... no pennies and a $10 bill for me. No longer.
If you want to watch a middle or high school student churn, ask them for 5 synonyms or antonyms without Google/dictionary.com. You might as well asked them to explain quantum physics (which they can do in exactly the number of words you desire with AI).
Smart phones and their users have a shared capacity, and the greater the intelligence of the phone, the lower the intelligence of the user.
Gotta go... need this screen to hail my waymo, turn off the lights, lock the door and set the alarm.
Don't get SFW going on trying to teach kids how to make change
