I recently found a handful of coins on the parking lot of our supermarket. Nothing big, just a few coins all below 50 cents. Since in the Netherlands almost all money transactions are done digital, I have one of those wallets that doesn’t contain a pocket for coins anymore. I typically still carry some loose coins in that small little pocket in my jeans (if I wear jeans) and so I just put them in my pocket.

While I was walking home, I realized, that I have no use any more for this small money. I carry still some 1 Euro or 2 Euro pieces around - for those few annoying times when you still need them (looking at you some supermarket carts! Or Toilets in Germany … ) - but everything below 1 Euro or 50 Cent basically doesn’t exist anymore in my day. I honestly do not know what to do with those coins. I cannot pay with them, because I never pay in cash anymore, they are too few to put into my bank account. So either I store them, probably until the end of days, or at some point I will just donate them because that’s probably the best use I can make out of them. When one of those donation collection organisation go around, typically around Christmas time.

Those coins, while still having some value, I find difficult to integrate into my life, and so they appear to be just some kind of parallel money. Maybe just because cash is rarely used here.

Small money somehow doesn’t exist anymore. At least for peeps like me in their daily life. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or not, it kinda feels like a bit of both.