give a penny/take a penny
 

At the counter of my local C-store with several people behind me in line. The cashier tells me I owe $2.43. I look in my wallet and find two $1 bills and a $20. In my pocket I grab a quarter and a dime. So I have $2.35 or breaking the $20. I look down at the give a penny/take a penny cup and it is filled to the top. There probably is 25 cents in there maybe more. So FOFC, is eight cents too much to take from the cup? This would probably speed up the transaction and I wouldn't have to break the $20.

Definitely take the 8 cents. That's what it's there for. The cashier will probably appreciate not having to count out the change either.

One can never take "too much" from that cup.

This post got QuikSand all excited until he realized it wasn't a math puzzle.

I'd like to hear the game theory on this

When I scrolled over the topic, that is exactly what I thought it was.

I think 8 is pushing the limit, but probably ok.

It is there, use it

I'd look at it in terms of how much was in there. If there was a nickel and 5 pennies, then yes, 8 cents is too much to take. But since it was full, I think you were probably OK.

I'd say that's okay as well considering how full it was.

Besides, I'm always dropping off the pennies I have as change in those things.

Next time just give double back to the jar. :)

Don't be crazy. Eight pennies is entirely too many. Three is pushing it. Four is the absolute limit.

Eight pennies??? Are you on welfare for godsakes? Give them the 20 and be done with it. Frankly they are lucky a BALLER like yourself isn't strapped with just hundreds.

the key word in there is A penny

it's not your personal piggy bank


besides, how big a hardship is it to get change for a 20? at some point in time in the universe I believe you will be forced to.

vote for take 'em in your case.
The cup runneth over.

He was only thinking of the cashier, for whom breaking a $20 and figuring out the change would be a hardship.

people helping people

Ok I'll admit I thought for a second about reaching in and grabbing the 8 pennies but decided against it. I whipped out the $20 and she made change. I now found myself with two pennies and had to decide whether to contribute to the ever growing penny pile or not.

Keep 'em...the damn thing was overflowing and if you added two more you never know what would happen to the stability of the pile let alone the cup or container they were in. Then you would have a mass penny pitching fit as people dove to the floor collecting loose change.

I have never understood what those were for, so have never participated in that ritual. This thread has been enlightening.

(vaguely related)
I read something a while back in a newspaper in London - some newsagents in the busy stations here simply allow you to toss coins into a slot and take a paper because in the morning its not feasible to queue up and pay.

The report indicated that the shops found they were actually recieving around 125% of the value of each paper on average from people because people would toss 50p in for a 30p paper simply for the convenience of doing it.

People tend to then be too embaressed the next day by the idea of someone noticing them under-paying and them having to explain themselves so will over-pay again .... and again ...

Weird but true (and whats worse I've been known to do it myself :D).

I never take a penny. Only use them when the cashier offers.

The pennies are there for a reason - to SPEED the transaction. If you need to take one, or two, or the whole fucking jar, then do it. As long as you leave your pennies when you can, it all evens out.

very seldom is it a jar as you and jbmagic seem to think. most often it's a tray.

This is a very odd thing to get excited about.

Nah, they are there for convenience. Few people want a pocket full of change, so this helps round to a near denomination. I'm going to drop all of my pennies in the jar (styrofoam cup really), and I don't really care how many people use.

I say if it's overflowing, you can take as many pennies as it takes to acheive the quickest transaction (counting out 25 pennies will not speed up the transaction), as long as you leave pennies when the situation demands it. If everyone follows that rule, the penny tray will achieve it's maximum potential.

Normally the styrofoam cup is for tips and is clearly marked as such.

Do you often tip the convenience store clerk?

they never put out the styrofoam cups

I don't think I've ever seen a penny-jar that wasn't a styrofoam cup. Maybe it is just a wisconsin thing.

My memory of Madison is that it was usually something that resembled an ashtray.

Styrofoam for tips; usually an ashtray or coaster-looking thing for pennies.

This is nice.

The gas station around the corner of my house has jars collecting money for the Make-A-Wish Foundation. Whenever I purchase in there, I put the coin change in that jar AND I grab the penny tray and dump it in there. I don't think I have ever dropped a tray with more than 5 or 6 pennies though.

I'm with Subby... 3 is pushing it, 4 is the MAX to be used in emergency only, but 8 is outrageous.

The pennies are there to be used. I think taking 8 would be fine.

we need a poll for this I think

You owed $2.43. So you would get $17.57 change from a $20. Is counting out this change really going to take the clerk that long?

Maybe if we got rid of pennies, this would eliminate the tray. I also think we should eliminate gas stations charging $2.159 a gallon for gas. Just charge $2.16.

I actually heard something about this recently. It costs the mint more than a penny to make a penny or close to it, and they are either thinking about using another metal or scrapping it alltogether. What would they do, make everything in multiples of 5 so we can pay in nickels? Not sure what they would do about taxes, just round up or down?

As for the pricing model above, isn't that a consumer or economics theory called "odd pricing"?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odd_pricing

But they do charge you $2.16. Have you ever shelled out $2.159? Not to mention that if you actually filled up your tank and it ended up as $XX.16, you're pumped up a little more so you're charged $XX.25 (around here at least).

I would never take more than maybe two pennies from the "take a penny" jar.

I would, however, take as much as I could hold in one hand from the "tip" jar. Not even for change, I just stuff it in my pocket. I'm at a god damn donut shop, for pete's sake! Why would anyone tip you! We all know you just put that in yourself!

Australia got rid of all of its 1c and 2c coins 15 years ago and the smallest coin is now a 5c piece. All cash transactions are now rounded to the nearest 5. It caused some consternation at first but everyone accepted it in the end.

I thought there was always some kind of sign reading something like.

Need a Penny take a Penny
Need 2 take 2
Need 3....Get a Job