Canadian Penny - Bye!

From Yahoo Canada:
"Penny to disappear from coinage system, minting to end by fall: budget"

There may still be pennies from heaven, but they won't be coming from the mint much longer. The humble one-cent piece is set to disappear from Canadian pockets, a victim of inflation. Thursday's federal budget said the Royal Canadian Mint will strike the last of the little coins this fall. The budget says the cost of minting a penny has risen to 1.6 cents or $11 million a year. Its purchasing power has fallen to a 20th of its original value. "The penny is a currency without any currency in Canada," Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said at a news conference. Pennies will still be legal tender, but as they slowly vanish from circulation, prices will have to be rounded up or down. If the customer has the pennies, they can use them. Payments with debit or credit cards, or cheques, can also be to the penny. But if the customer is paying cash and doesn't have the pennies, the total will go up or down to the nearest nickel. For example, $1.02 will become $1 and $1.03 will be $1.05.

^ I do not like carrying any change. Even with the penny disappearing it still leaves the $1 and $2 coins in Canada. One thing I remember from growing up in New York is always getting Canadian pennies in my change (although stores always checked when you tried to reuse them.) I used to think it was a Canadian conspiracy to infiltrate their money into our currency. I also remember the military bases in Germany using the "Swedish Rounding System" they would round down if it was 1 or 2 cents and round up if it was 3 or 4 cents. It was annoying if you had to pay the extra penny for no reason. Then when I was in Russia (and in several other European countries) if they didn't have pennies or kopecks they would give you some really cheap and disgusting candy to "make up" for the missing coins. I didn't like that either. I guess in the end the Canadian penny is going to disappear and it really won't affect me - unless I am in Canada. I just hope the US doesn't try (again) to do away with the American penny. ^

http://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/penny-disappear-coinage-system-minting-200604652.html