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.
Advertisement
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.
Jason
I’ve seen that argument many, many times, especially when I was in retail management. In the end, no one was ever able to produce any research into how many checks were actually received chain wide, or how many were fraudulent. Everything was based on perception by various store managers. We kept accepting checks and manager kept complaining about bad checks.
In the end, accepting paper checks just isn’t worth it and small businesses need to move into the 21st century and use the debit card their bank gives them.
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.
S
I think the important question here is “why does sales tax need to be added into the end of the transaction?”
The truth for the most part is that sales outlets want the lowest visible price, and including tax costs in the price tag could make for less sales.
But there’s really no reason for it that I’ve heard beyond that.
Stuart
Sales tax varies by state and sometimes by town where there are special economic zones.
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
fred
There are some in government and elsewhere that would like to get rid of the cash economy. That’s more than a 2-edged sword. It may prevent some of the finagling and cheating on taxes that can come with cash transactions – but it is a hardship for the poor who have neither checking accounts nor credit cards. Folks who are using cash as a way to stay away from credit card debt would also be at a disadvantage. I’ve run into establishments (perhaps because of crime in their area) that will only take credit cards – not wanting to have cash to attract robbers. I find that I now seldom use cash or checks – paying most everything via EFT or credit card – reserving the cash for my landscapers and tips – with checks for things like tax bills and others who only take them as a form of payment.
When I worked – our salesmen/field reps. across all of our businesses were often asked if there was a cash discount. While we would offer to work with customers to reduce costs by changing work-scopes or selection of materials – we never offered a discount for cash – and preferred checks as the form of payment. I guess in today’s economy – my ex-compatriots take payment via services like Venmo
S
There’s a lot of smaller businesses now that charge the 3.5% fee for swiping plastic on top of the transaction now. So the cash only price can be cheaper.
It’s funny, because a previous employer I worked for always did this for the past 20 years, and I was endlessly berated by customers for having to do it. But now that I no longer work there, it’s become commonplace in small business.
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.
Vards Uzvards
“Do as Europe did and forced direct inflation by tax and everything is . 00 no sub dollar denominations.”
This is not how things work over there, in Europe. Prices are not rounded, and some customers prefer to pay with plastic cards (many use debit cards, not credit), but others much more prefer to pay with cash (counting all the cents while doing so).
Recently I spent more than a month in one of the Baltic states. It’s part of the European Union, and rules are all the same across the whole block of countries. Mine is not tourist’s experience – I’m still considered local there, I have the passport, speak local languages, more or less, and stay at my own apartment while there, not at a hotel.
Nathan
Funny you mention that but I’ve been a number of times. Last was Belgium in 22. And I do sort of wonder but I was never charged anything but an even euro with the exception of my gasoline and a plane ticket.
Aram
“I’d rather have recycled plastic money.”
Australian bills are a weird plastic, and honestly they’re pretty nifty. Nearly indestructible too.
Jason
Canada eliminated their penny years ago. Cash is simply rounded to the nearest $.05 denomination. Sometimes you gain a few cents, sometimes you lose a few. It all washes out in the end, so it’s really no big deal.
I do tax returns every year and we’ve been rounding to the nearest dollar, per the IRS, for I don’t know how many years. Entering the pennies just isn’t worth it to any one, and none of our clients has ever noticed.
I expect we in the US could go the nearest $.10 denomination, eliminating the nickel as well. That would take legislation to make it legal though, and some lobbyist will argue how it will hurt whichever industry they represent, or how much it’ll cost to set registers to do the rounding.
Robert
We have cashless businesses here. I don’t understand how they can legally insist on it since the currency says “This note is legal tender for all debts, public and private.” I hope there is a lawsuit that bursts the cashless mandate.
Scotty.
Someone will become very wealthy when they develop a pricing algorithm that rounds up 51% of all transactions.