The Future Of The US One Cent (Penny)

i frequently use junk cents (1982-2012) (Saving all copper and 2013 cents at the moment) at mc donalds as well as automated checkout machine,either in roll form for a small ($1 or less) purchase, or to make exact change especially for sales tax

I can understand saving all copper pre-1982s and copper 1982s, but, why "2013" Zincolns? Is there something special about this year?

(Oh, and speaking of "13s" its almost Friday the 13th here 9/13/13. As Dr. Evil would say, "Yeah, Shcary"

The places where I pay cash have a significant discount. For example, a lunch combo I regularly get rings up to $8.97, but I only pay $8.

It's rare to see the cash discount, I don't think the government likes it and stopped gas stations from doing it in the past because it made the markup you get by using credit to obvious to the masses, now it's just included in the cost of doing business. But, I guess I've seen small business, like say a Chinese restaurant balk all day at getting one of these CC machine readers in.

I just checked the fees and it's .11 for the gross transaction all day, another .0195 for something called the APF and hey if you use debit they give you a break on the APF, it's only .0155. Using Debit, something called a TIF 10 cents per transaction. Their are other fees and costs but if you ever think of starting your own business this is your primer for CC. http://www.cardfellow.com/blog/cred...essing-fees/

1-2% is just a giveback, great way to get people to use the cards, but like I said, who's actually paying the 1-2% more?, I can assure you the business man is not marking his product down, but the CC company, they are making a killing, so it is you my fellow CC users who pay it up the chain..

Not saying card rewards are not good. This also tells how the rewards costs are simply passed back onto you anyways.
http://www.indexcreditcards.com/cre...=fxb-6554810

Many gas stations used to give cash discounts around here (as separate posted rates for cash and credit), but I haven't seen that in while...

I do get the occasional "what the heck" glance when I park at the pump and then walk in to prepay

When I was living in France in the late 1970s the lowest value coin was 1 centime (one-hundredth of a franc). I reckon it then had about the same purchasing power as an American penny has now - you needed 50 or 60 to buy a postage stamp, for instance. But unlike the US penny, you hardly ever saw them. The mint simply stopped making them (except for collectors' uncirculated sets) once they cost more than their face value to manufacture. Most shops rounded up prices to the nearest 5 centimes. I was always pleased when I got a 1-centime coin in change, as it was quite a rare occurence. In fact it was more usual to get an old aluminium 1-franc coin dated from 1941 - 1959 than an actual post-1960 1c coin, and the aluminium 2 old franc coins were also still used. I remember once reading an interview in a newspaper with the CEO of the Banque de France in which he was asked whether he was going to withdraw the 1c coin, and he said there was no need to pass legislation to withdraw it as it was vanishing from circulation anyway. As far as I know, it remained legal tender right up to the introduction of the Euro.

So perhaps - if Denver and Philadelphia just stopped minting pennies for circulation, people would gradually stop using them?

i only use my credit card when I don't want to break another dollar for something like a $1.08 purch ASE

They should still make some money from charging the vendors, but I have no doubts theyve figured out the magic number where they maximize their profit while still getting paid. Mastarcards stock didnt basically triple to almost 700 a share in the last 3 years from everyone paying it off every month. Still kicking myself for not getting in on that one.