Since the removal of the gold standard and introduction of fiat money, the relative value of coins has plummeted. In 1930, the year before the removal of the gold standard in the UK, a £1 coin would have been worth £45.79 today, the equivalent of 3 days wages for a skilled tradesman. Or to put it more simply, 90 years ago, the £1 was worth 45 times more than it is today.

The £1 coin today does still have some value, however even this is fast diminishing. The real-world value of the smaller denominations of course dwindles as the numerical value shrinks, with the 1p, 2p, 5p and probably even 10p coins now essentially redundant in 2021, with practically nothing available to even purchase at these values. Their only use is as change for purchases are of higher values, or because a business deems it psychologically beneficial to make a sale at 99p, or £9.95 etc, i.e. to try and make the sale appear cheaper than it really is.

But aren’t we all smarter than that, we all just round the numbers up anyway, right? Well, study after study shows that it does infact more often than not trick our brains into just disregarding the pennies and even making decisions based on the rounded-down figure, despite it defying all logic to do so. Even when it is 99p and only 1p away from rounding up, it’s just how our brains are wired, something to do with how we process metaphorical and physical losses and gains, one study even shows chimps indicating similar behaviour. Sure most of us just round up, but that initial viewing of the price and every-time you see it with your eyes, you are seeing the smaller number and it can influence the decision-making in even the most steely-eyed of us. Some cheeky marketers also like to to make the value of the pounds a larger font size than the pennies to emphasize this trick our brain plays on us.

Well, this all may be great for the seller, but what is the point of the extra penny saved for the consumer? Most people are not saving up those 1p and every 100 purchases cashing in less than the price of a single coffee. The shrapnel is just thrown into our pockets and then thrown somewhere, like the coin jar when you get home, where it remains, often indefinitely. Do we really need these coins anymore? Back in 1930, pre-fiat money, 10 pence would have been worth the equivalent of around 3 hours skilled labour, today you can’t even buy a Chomp (a Chomp is an infamously cheap UK toffee-chocolate bar which used to, and for many years, cost 10p).

We realise that there are some areas of society, such as charities and the homeless, who still rely on the donations of these smaller denominations, but this is a problem that is not there because of coins and has not ever been solved by coins, it is a problem which needs solving regardless of coins. There is an argument that without the appearance of help by chucking the most vulnerable in society what is worthless to the rest of us, it would force the government and society actually confront the problem properly. A penny is essentially as worthless to the homeless as it is to us.

For most folks, the low value coins are nothing more than half nostalgia of a time when coins were worth carrying, and half pain in the backside, literally, from carrying worthless coins around in your pocket.

Many countries around the world have already removed the lower value coins from legal tender and so businesses just round the price up. Australia for example removed the 1c and 2c coins all the way back in 1992 and since then many other countries have followed suit, from Croatia to Colombia and many others, removing coins of such low value that they are no longer efficient to carry around and use.

Remember, that is a key part of cash, you need to be able to carry it. Notes are convenient and easy to use, coins, sadly, as wonderful as they are as pieces of artworks and craftsmanship, don’t have a high enough value to warrant being carried around, as they are too heavy and jagged to be comfortable. Especially with modern-day tight jeans. Maybe if coins were worth what notes are, the trade-off might be more bearable.

We think all kinds of money have their place, however the hyper-inflation in the value of money and coins is both out of our control, and out of control. There has to be a cost-benefit analysis, for example, we could remove the 1p and 2p coins, then use the money saved from minting and processing them, to directly help the homeless. We could have a 1p surcharge on each transaction and give this money direct to charity – if we are being charged £X.99 and realistically no-one wants that 1p anyway, can we not just stop with the bullshit, round the figure up and just give the 1p to the homeless and charities every single time?

The argument against the removal of the smallest value coins because it might reduce donations to charities and the homeless, just shifts the argument from the fact that the government should be helping the homeless and the most vulnerable people in our so-called modern society regardless, without counting the pennies. Just like you, the most vulnerable can’t survive on money which is essentially worthless. The low-value coins, where you needs dozens and dozens of them even just to buy lunch, are more hassle than they are worth. And maybe, just maybe, they are actually preventing positive change.

And as usual, it is the local business owners who are paying the price, for it’s these people who are are either solo or have few staff and have to either go out of hours to pay in cash and swap it for small change, that is if they can find an open bank at that time of course, or they have to close up just to visit the bank. Money is there to be circulated, but when the money coming into the shop is generally the larger denominations of coins and notes, and the money going out is usually the smaller denominations of coins, we have an imbalance in the system. There can’t be a continuous flow. All the smaller coins are doing is adding a barrier to the efficiency of cash.

Infact the busier the shop, the more trips to the bank are necessary, but with less time to do it. The solution isn’t just a drastic cliff-edge in the removal of coins, now that really would impact the most vulnerable beyond repair and to a much greater scale. But a sensible graduation of the removal of the lowest-value coins, that are no-longer able to actually purchase anything, unless you have a bag of them.

It would be nice to not be treated like an idiot and not have to see £XX.99 everywhere in what is essentially a mass mind hack. Show some respect to the consumer and just price it as it is. And if you see someone in need and would like to give them some financial help, just don’t be a tight-arse and give them more than few pennies, anything less basically worthless anyway. We would like to see a 1p transaction surcharge for the charities and homeless, to us it just seems like a straight-forward direct-trading of the 1p, from change to charity.