Well I don't have a quarter

[Whyme]

I still vividly remember a man who bought groceries to the amount of $20.10. He opened his wallet and I spied $21.00 inside. He took out the twenty and said "I don't have a dime.". I stared at him while he held out the twenty and he acted as if this wasn't a problem.

I told him "I see a dollar bill in your wallet...". He finally looked me in the eye and seem quite startled. He eventually gave up the dollar (along with the twenty), but wasn't happy about it.

I can be up to five dollar short in my drawer, but I choose not to be short at all if I can help it. Attitude it everything as well. I had two teens buy a box of store brand tampons and they were thirty cents short. They were greatly embarrassed and were trying to pool together everything they had in their pockets. I let them have the tampons and put in thirty cents from my own pocket.

On the debit/credit thing, I'm also someone that uses cash only. I recently gave up using any kind of debit/credit card. I had a debit card, but the bank started coming up with some really odd fees that weren't with my account before and not getting any satisfaction, I closed the account and decided to be a cash only person. I do have a prepaid credit card, but I have yet to put any cash on it. I also don't expect a cashier to give me one red penny if I'm a cent short. I don't have the money, I don't get buy it. Plain and simple.

[malmalthekiller]

The total comes to something like $5.26 and she annouces she only has a five and can I take care of the difference? Err, no. The state charges YOU the tax, the store isn't going to pay it (said much more politely, BTW). "But I only have five dollars!"

THIS. This used to happen ALL the time. People will buy one thing (usually on sale), and hand you a crumpled bill, and be short the change. And they'll be fiddling with their purse and I assume they're getting the change, so we stare awkwardly at each other for a few seconds until I say..."you still owe me xxcents". And the person says, "OH! I only have that bill."

And there's a standoff.

[LadyAndreca]

I was short once recently...had $17 in my wallet and it was $17.08 for the stuff. It never even occured to me to not pay that extra eight cents! I just apologized and pulled out my credit card instead.

They chose to take the cash because it was a small store and they didn't want to pay the card company the fee, which I understand but certainly wasn't expecting. The next time I went in I brought an extra dime with me to pay them back...which THEY certainly weren't expecting!

I don't understand these people at all. I learned when I was very little that if I didn't have the money for something, I didn't get it. (Though once in a while my parents would negotiate extra chores or no allowance until something was 'paid off'.) When I was too little to understand sales tax, my parents covered that when I didn't have enough. Once I was old enough to understand, my parents taught me to add ten percent to everything I bought to make sure I had enough. I remember several Christmases where I'd quietly borrow a calculator from the office supply aisle of the store to make sure I could buy everything. (I carry my own nowadays, but as a kid a calculator cost five whole dollars! And yes I put it back when I was done.)