I don’t think I’ve mentioned it before but I agreed to be the PTA treasurer at my daughter’s school this year. So far it has been relatively uneventful. It mostly entails writing lots of checks, balancing a budget each month and reporting facts and figures during the monthly meetings.
Besides writing lots of checks, I’ve also been receiving a lot of money to deposit in our PTA bank account. Usually most of the money I receive is checks and a few $5’s, $10’s, and $20’s so it doesn’t take long to count it all and then fill out the bank deposit slips. I was feeling pretty good about all of it until I got the latest cash to deposit in the bank. This money was from the PTA treat cart that periodically sells treats at recess (about once a month or so). I had been anticipating getting this money because I knew it would be more cash than usual but I was quite surprised at how much change I had to count. All told, there was about $85 in coins and another $135 or so in $1 bills. I had to chuckle as I counted the money because I could just imagine all the kids rummaging through their parent’s sock drawers, kitchen drawers and anywhere else that might have some loose change in their house. There were hundreds of pennies, nickels and quarters but what surprised me a little bit were the 3 Susan B Anthony $1 coins and the 10 $1 gold coins. I suspect these were most likely taken from a parent’s stash of “special†coins but I’ll never know.
I can remember many times growing up when I frantically searched through every possible hiding spot in our house, looking for my parent’s extra coins as the music from the popsicle truck got louder and louder. I shudder to think of all the special coins I used from my dad’s little box of coins that he kept in the closet. I suppose it’s kind of ironic that I now have that special box and there aren’t nearly as many rare coins as there were before I was born…….
On a somewhat related note, what do you think the chances are of changing to a “credit card or checks only†policy for the treat cart at my daughter’s school? Yeah, probably not good.
This makes me think of the time I raided my dad’s “funny money” collection for the book cart in elementary school. Thanks to the librarian’s sharp eye, I didn’t get my intended loot, and I had to tell my dad I stole his money. Fun times.
Well, as for the Gold $1 coins, my kids have them becasue that’s what the Tooth fairy used to bring in exchange for teeth. Just another perspective.
I don’t know. The couch was always a decent place to find some extra change, especially when someone who was a little chunky was over. Things would fall out of the pockets and my brother and I would go couch fishing.
Yeah, the gold coins weren’t really surprising but the Susan B Anthony dollars were. I haven’t seen a ton of the gold coins in circulation but I guess there are a lot of them out there.
In San Francisco, whenever you use a Muni ticket machine under ground, all change is given in coins. That would include Susan B Anthony, as well as gold dollars. Once I got couple of gold coins in a post office, buying stamps from a vending machine.
My wife used to be a PTSA treasurer. She opted out of taking credit card payments altogether (as far as I remember) for it cost some money to process each such payment, and PTSA bank account (at Wells Fargo) would incur additional monthly fee for such a “privilege”. Personal checks and cash worked just fine.