John Green is a great guy. I’ve had the pleasure of meeting him, and he is really smart and really clever. His books are wonderful, and he deserves all of the success that he has had. But John Green and I disagree on one thing: the penny.
John Green hates pennies. I love them. Follow me on Twitter, and you can see how many I find as I go about my life.
I know, I know, I’ve heard the arguments. They cost more than a penny to mint, and they you have to carry a whole bunch of them around. But I’ll say a few things in their favor:
- Yes, they cost more than face value to mint, but they last for decades. Economists talk about the velocity of money, the number of times a given bit of currency moves through the economy. Because of their long lives, pennies can be used and reused practically forever. The return on pennies is better than the return on paper dollars, I’d argue.
- Pennies don’t affect people who pay with credit cards, checks, or electronic transfer. I’m a Luddite; I like cash because it makes me more mindful of my spending and it has no transactions cost for me or the merchant. But if you don’t use cash, you aren’t much affected by pennies.
- If the penny goes away, prices will be rounded up, even if you pay with credit cards, checks, or electronic transfer. It may seem like a tiny amount, but tiny amounts add up, and you can bet that every business in America would be happy to see prices increased 1, 2, 3, or 4 cents.
- Speaking of which, for years I have had the habit of saving all my change, something my father did, too. I keep it in a jar and then, once a year or so, take it to the bank to be counted. The money then goes into my kid’s college fund. There is a fine of $0.25 for swearing around here, so my husband and son end up contributing, too. (There was one Christmas when two of my husband’s uncles gave my son and one of his cousins each a $5 bill, then swore 20 times each. These two little kids thought it was hilarious, and I thought it was a silly great-uncle thing to do.) This year, the total value of the change was $241.66. Many banks will count coins for free for customers; Coin Star machines often take a cut, but they sometimes run promotions. At the grocery store by me, Coin Star is free if you put the value on a gift card for that store. Obviously, you don’t want to pay a fee, or it ruins the point! And yes, find all your coins and get them counted, to get the coins back into the economy and get the money working for you.
- $241.66 doesn’t sound like much to you? What? How much did you put in your kid’s college account this year? Yeah. I thought so. Ask your nearest neighborhood college kid – or parent paying for college – if he or she would welcome $241.66 right now. What will he or she say? Yeah. I thought so.
- What will upperclassmen throw at freshmen? Used batteries?
I’m a penny believer. And John, next time you are in Chicago, I challenge you to a debate. And bring all the change that you don’t want with you.
