$100 bills are hard to use.

[Chuckanut]

According to today’s WSJ paying for purchases, especially small ones, is difficult with a $100 bill.

“ Rayza Sison went to a flea market in New York this month with five $100 bills. One by one, vendors refused to take her money, saying they couldn’t make change or accepted only digital payments through Venmo or Zelle.

Determined to break the bills, the 26-year-old senior program coordinator tried using them at coffee shops and then her local fruit stand. She was refused again. The bills are still in her wallet.”

“ In Midtown Manhattan, cashiers were on alert when a Wall Street Journal reporter tried to use $100 bills to pay for small items. Some held the bill up to the light to spot “USA 100” embedded in it to confirm its authenticity. Others used a counterfeit pen, which has ink that turns black when in contact with fake currency. At a bookstore, a cashier yelled “check, please” and an employee appeared from behind a tall stack of books to run a $100 bill through a counterfeit bill detector before completing a transaction for $3 of children’s books. The store had recently caught a customer trying to use a fake $100.”

One of my favorite quotes on $100 bills is from Gilligan’s Island. Thurston Howell III comes across one on the island and remarks, “Lovey, look at this, a $100 bill. I didn’t know they made them that small.”

 

[braumeister]

There are a great many places with signs on the cash register that nothing larger than a $20 bill is accepted.

I pay with fifties at restaurants and have never been questioned, but I have read that the US$100 bill is the most counterfeited currency in the world, with millions of them in circulation. So I avoid them.

What's funny to me is that those pens that are used to check bills only work if the counterfeiter has used cheap paper. High quality rag-based paper will pass every time.

 

[street]

Interesting!!! That is all I carry and when I break one, they check it thoroughly. I just broke one the other day and I always have one broke at the same filling station. I get 20$ of gas every time I go in there and they know what I want and the change in return. I want 4 20$ bills when I break one.

I always one Benjamin in my money clip. I pay cash for just about everything under 100$.

I often wonder what they say about me after I leave, I always have 100's and pay with a 20. LOL

 

[Dash man]

I’ve got two in my wallet as does DW. She used a Chase Bank ATM to get cash for each of us and it gave her 4 $100 bills and ten $20 bills. We haven’t been able to use them yet. But I’ve gone to a different ATM to get more $20s.

 

[Car-Guy]

I guess I'm an outlier on this topic too. I use $100 bills all the time. Even occasionally at McDonalds. Of course that's not saying much these days.


Personally I wish they'd bring back $500 and $1000 bills

 

[USGrant1962]

I don't use them in stores, but they are an everyday currency in poker games!

 

[Gumby]

The ATM spits out 20s, so that's the largest bill I ever carry. I would have to go through some effort to get a $100 bill. But then I don't give a rat's fat behind whether or not other people think I'm a macher.

 

[Jerry1]

Never had any problems using hundos at the casino.

 

[Car-Guy]

^^^^^ +1 And lots of them!

Late last year, I won 10k at a Casino on a slot machine... This weekend I felt so guilty about taking so much of their money, I gave most of it back!

 

[GrayHare]

Seems like old news. Heck, I can recall when $50s had been suspect, and probably $20s before that. Tendering any note much larger than the amount owed has long raised eyebrows.

 

[GenXguy]

One of my favorite quotes on $100 bills is from Gilligan’s Island. Thurston Howell III comes across one on the island and remarks, “Lovey, look at this, a $100 bill. I didn’t know they made them that small.”

And $100 could get you a lot more back in those days.

I'm not sure I ever used $100 bills anywhere except if buying/selling with private sellers/buyers for cash and at the bank.

 

[GrayHare]

Instead of going to flea markets, Rayza needs to buy a nice bottle of wine, then fill her big truck with gas, and watch those Benjis disappear.

 

[athena53]

The ATM spits out 20s, so that's the largest bill I ever carry. I would have to go through some effort to get a $100 bill.

I live in a suburb of Kansas City with poorer-than-average demographics. The bank ATM in the grocery store will spit out 2 $100 bills if you withdraw $200. I just won't use it. I can't figure out why the default (with no choice) is $100 bills in this neighborhood.

Last week I went to a "We Buy Gold" place to sell some jewelry odds and ends and they gave me $500- in 5 Benjamins. I suppose I could have asked for smaller bills but I didn't; I rarely pay cash because I get cash back on my credit cards and pay them in full every month. I gave the $ to our church Treasurer as a donation; I've done that before with large bills. That way it's used for a purpose where I wouldn't ordinarily use credit cards and it will be tracked for tax purposes.

 

[Aerides]

I never had a problem, but I would not try to pass a $100 for a small purchase, say under $20, and definitely not at a small place like the examples listed, flea market, fruit stand, coffee shop.

Places like that aren't going to have huge amounts of change on hand, so taking my large bill leaves them less options for other customers.

 

[aja8888]

When I retired at 35 with $20 Million, I used to use $100 bills to light my cigars...........

 

[Sunset]

^^^^^ +1 And lots of them!

Late last year, I won 10k at a Casino on a slot machine... This weekend I felt so guilty about taking so much of their money, I gave most of it back!

You are a very generous person

 

[Sunset]

I hate getting $100 bills, I guess I should shave before trying to spend them so I look more respectable

Once I had some $1,000 bills , turned them into the bank as nobody accepted them !!

The other end is $1 coins, I used one back in 2001 at a grocery store, they thought it was counterfeit at first. I think it was the Sacagawea dollar .

 

[MC Rider]

Give me your tired, worn out, unspendable $100 bills. I will dispose of them at no cost to you.

 

[aaronc879]

This comes as a surprise? I knew long ago not to try to use $100 for a small purchase. If I withdraw money from the bank I always get $20s or $50s, never $100s unless I am buying a big ticket item in cash for some reason.

 

[calmloki]

What surprised me is that $100s are are reported as the most common currency, with 26% more of them in circulation in 2022 than $1 bills. Thing is, we don't use them, but instead store them. Was/is true for us - real hard for me to break a hundred, so they got bundled up and stashed decades ago and even now to some extent. Wasteful, but we have more paper $100 bills stashed than any other currency in wallets or car cubbies. Gotta imagine that big drug dealers stack up hundreds as well.

Here's a fantasy: We're having super inflation so on a Wednesday night the government says all the old hundreds are worthless on Monday morning, to be replaced by the new bright orange hundreds. Until then the old hundreds can be exchanged, $10,000 maximum per person per day. Boom. Big hit to the drug cartels, value of a dollar goes up, only people who feel pain didn't really need or use the money anyway... Where did that happen last?

 

[pjm-7]

I almost never have $100 bills in my possession. They are just too suspect even for the Governor.

About twenty years ago in the Denver area a friend and I caught an early movie on a Saturday evening. On the way out of the theater I saw the Colorado Governor and his wife purchasing tickets with you guessed it, a $100 bill. The kid obviously did not know that it was the Governor and did all of his security checks by holding the bill up to the light and using the security pen. The Governor was patient and just smiled.

If the Governor can't easily use a $100 bill who can.

 

[GrayHare]

Most $100s are doing their circulating outside the US where they serve as an interest-free loan to the US. Demonitizing them is fantasy since that would destroy confidence in the dollar and end the free loan.

 

[isisdave]

Here's a fantasy: We're having super inflation so on a Wednesday night the government says all the old hundreds are worthless on Monday morning, to be replaced by the new bright orange hundreds. Until then the old hundreds can be exchanged, $10,000 maximum per person per day. Boom. Big hit to the drug cartels, value of a dollar goes up, only people who feel pain didn't really need or use the money anyway... Where did that happen last?

That would make for a very unpleasant weekend for the bank staff, and I would find it troublesome if we were away on a trip. I keep two or three in the safe for payment of the handyman for small jobs (none of which cost less than $100 it seems) or irresistible deals that come up on Marketplace. Maybe I should just shift to fifties.

My credit union only dispenses $50 and $100s from two ATMs in their main office. They're usually new bills. Everything else is $20. I wish you could get tens and fives even; this can be done lots of places in Europe but rarely in the US.

 

[statsman]

Where we live, a lot of people carry cash. A good of number who do carry $50 and $100 bills. Which probably explains why one of the local ATMs we use offers up $10, $20, and $100 bills, with an option to select which ones we want. I rather like the $10 bill, usually snagging a few of those along with the $20 bills.

 

[audreyh1]

I see a lot of people paying cash with $100s here too like at Costco etc. Major cash economy going on.

One time I went inside the bank to get cash on a Friday and I wanted $50s. They said they were low on $50s because it was a payday.