(Hemera)
A few weeks ago, we wrote about the Fed’s $1 billion stash of unwanted coins, and the Federal government’s seemingly failed experiment to get us to trade in our dollar bills for dollar coins. The folks over at NPR’s Planet Money got inside access to see the pile of coins, which so far has cost $300 million to manufacture. Despite the clear failure to create demand, the program, authorized by Congress in 2005, won’t end until 2016.
Now it seems some folks have found an easy way to profit from all those unwanted coins. Planet Money reports that people have started buying the coins with their credit cards, thereby earning lots of airline reward miles. The coins are sent to them by the government for free. The buyers then deposit the coins in their bank accounts, pay off their credit card bill… et voila, a free plane ticket to Paris. While the U.S. Mint is a bit miffed by the scheme, a spokesman admits that there’s nothing illegal about it.
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Brilliant! now all those people are stuck with small change…
here is some ways the can use it wisely
http://theregjoe.blogspot.com/2010/11/small-change-can-go-long-way.html
Some research notes (using Delta and the AMEX Gold Card
$329 price of ticket from Tampa FL to Madison WI round trip
25,000 cost in miles
$1 purchase gets you 1 mile
1,000 miles = 13.16 = (329/25000)*1000
You may only purchase $1000 every 10 days
365/10 = 36.5
13.16 x 36.5 = 480.34 (annual expected return)
480.34
average transaction time 10 minutes (guesstimate assuming you go to/near a bank regularly and register your US MINT account the first time)
(36.5 * 10) / 60 = 6.08 hrs / year
480.34 / 6.08 = $79.00/hr
Not to shabby, but there are other factors to consider.
How much happiness do you derive from screwing the Government?
How much is lost worrying about those coins sitting in your mailbox, just waiting to get stolen?
I personally find it worth while to pay my rent in dollars (or as I state to my land lord “GOLD GOLD GOLD!!!!!!”)
All told there are better ways to earn money, and depending on your tax rate (you do intend to pay taxes right?) you might not get more than your hourly rate after taxes.
But hey dollar coins are fun… so I’m all about it. (I do circulate f.y.i)
Why is the government so obsessed with moving to coins? I hate them. I accumulate a few nickels and dimes in the course of my day, and get rid of them in a jar as soon as I get home. I can’t cram 20 $1 coins into my wallet. And I certainly don’t need them jingling around in my pocket with my keys and cell phone.
Check out the kinds of wallets people carry in Europe. When I was in Rome last year and decided to buy a wallet for my girlfriend it was surprisingly hard to find a good one because on so many of them, two thirds of the wallet’s volume was taken up with a large coin purse.
Why doesn’t the US do what Canada has done? As you send out Coins into circulation, pull bills *out* of circulation, via banks. No stockpiling, and you transition your currency to the wanted coins. It’s pretty simple – why aren’t they doing it?
Who uses coins? What is this 1995.
I spend less than one half of one percent of my net income with physical currency.
I agree. I rarely carry much cash. Lasts forever in my wallet.
My wife just returned to Canada from a trip to Boston. With her she must have brought home about 20 US dollar coins. Now assuming that we can use these at par up here, she made a cool 80 cents [20-(20*.96)]! Me thinks there’s an opportunity here!
Christopher Walken. What was the question?
I am happy to report at I am one of the these individuals that order these coins on a regular base to earn points on my credit card, in order to pay at establishment that do not take credit cards or business that charge fee for using my credit card. I pay my annual property tax bill with coins, which is over $5000. I pay my gardener; give them to my children for allowance or to pay their school lunches. I use them to pay my city water bill. I enjoy finding new way to pay people with these coins. I am distributing them in my community, which is the intent of the program. I have yet to find someone who has not enjoyed receiving these coins as payment, except maybe my tax collector. They did not like carrying over 50 pounds of coins to the county safe.