A chain of convenience stores offers a free drink as a sandwich in exchange for them. A laundry owner drove four hours across state lines to get $ 8,000 worth. A young girl in Illinois wrote the dental fairy and said she would love to take dollars as a replacement if it helps.
There is a shortage of coins in the United States – yet another early side effect of the coronavirus pandemic. Quarters, dimens and nickel do not circulate as freely as normal because many businesses are closed and consumers do not spend as much.
The US Federal Reserve announced in June that the coin supply system was severely disrupted. US currency and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin have urged Americans to use coins or bank them. As the economy recovers and businesses reopen, currency supply is expected to normalize.
Meanwhile, retailers have encouraged large and small customers to use cards or make changes just as much as possible. Some will not provide change. Grocery giant Kroger Company still accepts cash, but offers customers the option to charge their change on loyalty cards to use on their next visit or to donate the balance to charity.
If the US economy recovers from coronavirus disorders, currency supply is expected to return to normal [File: Mike Wintroath/The Associated Press]
Convenience store chain Wawa offered customers a free drink in some of their stores when people brought in $ 5 coins, like a sandwich for $ 50 or more. Community State Bank, a regional bank chain in Wisconsin, even offered a $ 5 bonus for every $ 100 worth of coins people brought. The bank had to suspend the offer after a week due to an overwhelming response.
As the shortage continues, it has become clear that there are still some conundrums that only coins can solve.
“It’s at least a nuisance … at least it’s a business challenge,” said Brian Wallace, CEO of the Coin Laundry Association, a laundry group.
About 56 percent of washing machines that serve the public take quarters as the only form of payment. And 89 percent take quarters as some form of payment, with cards, loyalty programs or mobile payments as an alternative, according to the trading group.
Washers rely heavily on coins, in part because many of their customers are “unbanked” or “underbanked,” which means they use most or all of the cash instead of cards to pay for things.
Daryl Johnson, who owns Giant Wash Laundry – a chain of 11 laundries in the Minneapolis area – said his company typically buys anywhere from $ 4,000 to $ 8,000 a quarter for a week for his change machines. But after the Fed began distributing coins, his bank said it might not be able to supply one.
“Obviously we were a little freaking out,” he said.
Johnson got creative: he offered to buy change from friends and family on Facebook. He set up signs in stores asking customers to bring in their own coins and adapted his exchange machines to accept only smaller bills to limit the outflow. He even drove more than four hours to Omaha to buy $ 8,000 in quarters from another laundry operator.
To help its customers navigate the currency shortage, Grocery Gigant Kroger Company still accepts cash, but offers customers the option to charge their change on loyalty cards to use at their next visit or donate the balance to charity [File: Rogelio V Solis/The Associated Press]
“It’s that when my businesses close,” he said.
Things have stabilized somewhat, both for Johnson and his bank, in terms of supply.
People who rely on coin-operated washing machines in laundries and apartment buildings have difficulty, too. Stephanie Sabin of Portland, Oregon has a washing machine at her apartment complex that only lasts quarters of an hour. In July, her neighborhood bank was closed for self-employment. The next five locations they tried were closed or unable to give up their neighborhood. She was able to do her laundry with quarters that her family had on hand or that she bought from her boss.
“Desperate times,” she said. “You can’t apply for quarterly rolls at grocery stores or even get change back if you pay with cash at a food drive-through.”
Toll booths, parking meters, vending machines and other spots that were once coins were largely modernized to accept other forms of payment. But people find themselves in need of change for other situations.
Leigh Ann Tognetti of Rio Grande City, Texas had just started paying her five-year-old daughter a fee in July: two quarters for each day she picks up her room.
“It’s a lot of quarters to go through in a week,” she said. “I had no idea or stepped myself in for there to be a coin shortage.”
To keep her promise, Tognetti used change of vending machines at work and coins sent to her by a friend. Instead, she also used a stack of dimes like doubling two-day payments with a dollar bill.
“If she were to pick up every single day, we would have a problem,” she said.
For the North Carolina Aquarium at Pine Knoll Shores, a shutdown in March caused an unexpected opportunity to compensate for lost revenue and also led to a tackle on the coin shortage.
The aquarium closed its waterfall and cleared about 378 liters (100 gallons) of coins that visitors have dumped in the past 14 years. The coins, which are still being washed and counted, will go to operating expenses.
“We feel the pinch for sure,” said Danielle Bolton, a spokeswoman for the aquarium. “Every cent counts, literally.”
The deficiency is felt even by the boy.
Take Jen Vicker, of Bollingbrook, Illinois. Her 10-year-old daughter was recently awakened with a loose tooth and worried that the tooth fairy could not pay due to the shortage.
So she wrote a note: “Dear tooth fairy, you may know this already, but there is a national coin shortage in America. You usually leave me dollar coins, but until this situation is resolved, I want money for my teeth. “I apologize for the inconvenience.”
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