On my way to Red Rock
today to do some work, I looked in my wallet to see if I had enough
money to afford my hot chocolate (paying for a $3.50 drink with a
credit card is a pretty lame move). Here's what I found:
After some sorting, it comes out as follows...
| Currency | Count | Value (nominal) | Value (USD) |
| USD | 3 | 3 | 3 |
| CAD | 7 | 100 | 98.55 |
| CZK | 2 | 2100 | 106.40 |
| GBP | 1 | 10 | 15.55 |
| EUR | 1 | 20 | 25.79 |
| INR | 1 | 100 | 1.99 |
| RUB | 9 | 1570 | 49.97 |
| Total | 24 | - | 301.25 |
In other words, out of 24 total pieces of paper valued at over $300, I had three spendable pieces of paper valued at $3. Oh, and a couple of United beverage vouchers which expire in 9 days. I ended up going to the ATM.
Why is paying $3.50 with a card lame? I do not carry any cash at all, last time I had a wallet was in 2003 or so (it got stolen and I never bought a new one), thus I pay everything with a card, even if it is less than an euro. It is considered pretty normal over here. Why not in the US?
Many US merchants pay a per-transaction fee (on the order of a $0.25) for each credit card transaction. This has an impact on the profit margin for small purchases.
and it sounds like a debit card wasn't an option? I wish people gave receipts for small cash transactions as I really like having the metadata (although TurboScan on the iphone works very well for scanning receipts).