My local Home Depot store had the above signage displayed in multiple locations around the checkout area – apparently they are out of pennies.
They request that cash customers pay with exchange change, and there’s also the option to pay with credit or debit cards, store credit, gift cards, or check.
Retail stores still accept checks? I worked at a supermarket over 2 decades ago, and even then checks were a rarity.
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Looking online, I learned that the US government stopped penny production, and there are now shortages at many retailers.
Some retailers might round up or down, but for now Home Depot is only asking for exact change.
As a reminder, everyone’s two cents are welcome – especially at Home Depot stores these days! – but please avoid politics.
Related to this, does anyone know where I can get a roll or two of 2025 pennies? Apparently the local bank is out of pennies too.
Robert
Seeing this at many brick and cement retailers in town. Economists seem split on if the demise of the penny will cause merchants to drop XX.99 prices.
Stuart
Maybe only in states without sales tax.
BobH
“as a reminder, everyone’s two cents are welcome – especially at Home Depot stores these days! ”
🙂
Matt_T
Checks are still popular with small businesses around here. HD not taking checks would likely loose them some small business customers.
Marc
The Treasury Department said it cost 3.7 cents to make each penny…a losing money proposition. So I get why the government would want to stop making pennies.
But even if retailers rounded their items to the nearest 5 cents, sales tax would still create the need to pay with pennies because sales tax is a percentage of the sale.
It also costs the government 13.78 cents to make a nickel. Is that the next to disappear? 🤔
Banks prefer credit and debit cards so they can take a percentage of every sale. Banks want cash transactions to disappear. Are we on our way to a cashless society?
I’d prefer cash so local retailers keep the total sale and to keep prices down. But it is so easy to whip out that old credit card.
blocky
The utility of the penny to the economy is greater than 3.7 cents, as they get used over and over and over and over.
A company like Home Depot, with their massive profit margins, could easily muck 1-4 cents and keep the lines moving – take our money faster, or they could change the prices minutely for different locales to round off evenly more often, and no one would feel it.
TomD
Kwik Trip rounds everything down to the nickel now if paying with cash.
Adam
This sounds like it could be a Kramer pop can deposit escapade in some way. Someone buys all their gas $.09 at a time
Josh
We use the cash envelope system for budgeting and have for years.
King soopers was the first place we saw this at, I pay to the nearest nickel then run my card for 4 cents or less.
It seems pretty rich to me that a government that pays hundreds for a hammer at the pentagon is bent up over 3 cents to make a penny. 10 minutes with a red pen and I could save 10x the penny budget and the American people would never know. But instead we get this. Need to abolish all sales tax and retailers can come up one cent on most items and life would be good.
Thinking about it I guess I would be willing to trade 8.3% sales tax for a penniless society!!
Nathan
Recycled plastic penny.
Or
Do as Europe did and forced direct inflation by tax and everything is . 00 no sub dollar denominations.
I’d rather have recycled plastic money.
It’s not surprising. That or we go cashless and I don’t like that either.
Aram
“I’d rather have recycled plastic money.”
Australian bills are a weird plastic, and honestly they’re pretty nifty. Nearly indestructible too.