I keep hand sanitizer in the car and also in my pocket. I use it after touching any foreign object such as key pads and pens. I was caught a little short on sanitizer at the start but Ace happened to have a stock after a week or so. I only used it in church before. I usually use debit cards although I always have several hundred in cash with me. If I get change or bills at the drive through, they just stay in the car and not used for a few days. I don’t try and sterilize them. No good answer though and hand sanitizer puts little cracks in your hands that can hide the little buggers, so wash hands as soon as possible.
It’s no longer a problem finding hand sanitizer at the stores
On the other hand, disinfectant wipes . . . 
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I don’t see the point of debit cards. You have less legal protection with a debit card than with a credit card and lower rewards are available for credit cards plus they give you a free short term loan.
The only debit cards I have are ones that are linked to a nank account to withdraw cash, and that is all I use them for.
I did not think you were allowed to pump your own gas in New Jersey, The first time I drove through Jersey with my car and stopped for gas, the attendant was incensed that I had started pumping it. Especially when he saw my NY plates and I dom’t think he believed me when I told him I lived 400 miles from him and had never heard of their law.
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Regarding the coin shortage, several days ago I read that the federal reserve is limiting release of coinage to banks because coin production is currently limited due to Covid safety protocols at federal mints. Since many people tend to hand over paper currency when paying and then dump any coin change in a “penny jar” at home, I can see how a coin shortage can occur if release of new coinage into circulation becomes restricted.
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I grew up when most gas stations everywhere were full service and lived in NJ during the 1970s so am familiar with the varying degrees of full service.
In the summers of 1990 and 1991 I drove through Oregon taking my mom on extended driving vacations out west. At one station in Portland the “full service” consisted of a very rude pump jockey filling the tank while sloppily spilling gas down the side of my car. When I went to pay at the pay booth an extra $2 or $3 surcharge was levied for my having out of state plates which was a blatantly bogus charge. After a few moments of arguing I paid so we could get on the way but first I spent about ten minutes making a point.
First I got out the Windex and paper towel I carried in the trunk and thoroughly, thoroughly, painstakingly cleaned all the spilled gas off my car. Then I proceeded to give my car the FULL service I’d been charged for.
Even though I’d cleaned all the windows and headlights, checked the oil and other fluids, topped off the windshield wiper fluid, and checked tire pressue all around before leaving the motel that morning, I oh so diligently did so again. So all this time access to the now empty pump slot in front of me and the pump I was at were blocked from use.
The pump jockey was literally yelling at me to move the car so the waiting line of other drivers could pull up to the pumps. In the meantime an extended cab pick-up towing a very large camper pulled in effectively blocking four more pumps. The pump jockey and by now the pay booth guy were downright crimson and using equally crimson language. The whole time my mom serenely stood guard on my behalf.
Now you’d think the locals held up waiting for what apparently was a popular quick in quick out place to buy gas would have been annoyed by my performance but to my surprise there was no horn blowing or angry words. Instead, the peanut gallery were openly laughing and some yelling encouragement.
It did make for an interesting start to the day.
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For those interested in UV sterilizers-they only affect what they illuminate, and the ones I’ve seen say it takes 30 seconds. So you can’t sterilize a wad of cash, and you don’t just wave it over an area. It takes time.
Or reliance on coins is fascinating, and I think it’s another thing that’s become a generation issue. Ask the next generation of your family if they use cash. I know I like to have money in my wallet, but then I also know that my kids don’t carry a wallet, they carry a phone that they use to pay for things, and there’s a credit card and a license slipped into the back of the phone case.
And what’s the deal with pennies anyway? Enough with them already, just stop making them and using them, set up a mandatory rounding system to the nearest 5 cents, or even 10 cents. Stop making paper dollars altogether and use coins. Canada has no 1 dollar bills, there are no 1 euro bills. Paper money is filthy and expensive to make for the government.
What about all the times people go to 7-eleven, real coffee shops . . . NOT Starbucks . . . , or other small shops where the total charge is only going to be 2 or so?
Charge everything . . . ?!
I don’t think so
That’s what small bills and coins are for 
I might mention a lot of the smaller hot dog stands, taco trucks and burger joints . . . I’m NOT talking chains here . . . also don’t take plastic
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True but there are 1 Euro coins. I have some that that I’d like to get rid of. I like having real money though and debit cards. I don’t like credit cards except for travel. I put credit cards in the same category as alcohol and meth. I don’t write many checks anymore though-maybe a couple a month and they cost about 50 cents each.
Why , most of them have cash back features . We get several hundred dollars a year that way . We pay the credit card by online bank accounts that also has a small cash feature . We write maybe 4 checks a year.
I also only use pay at the pump for fuel .
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The last thing I need is a case of candy bars tempting me to eat them.
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What about a box of these guys . . . ?!
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More and more shops and coffee places and gas stations around here are pushing hard to only accept electronic payment. Gas stations used to charge less for cash, but all the name brands have stopped that. Often it’s in the name of virus safety, but the trend is very clear. In Stockholm the grocery store had checkout clerks, but all they did was sit and scan items and manually enter loose things like fruit and vegetables. They just left everything for you to bag up and take away, and you paid at a device that took plastic or proximity sensor stuff like some cards and phones or cash like the self check. No interaction at all.
GET THEE BEHIND ME SATAN!!!
Every Halloween, the guys bring all of their unused Halloween candy and dump it on the break room table. It slowly disappears and I gain a few pounds.
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Cereal is healthy—so, break the cookies into quarters, place in bowl, add milk. Voila, cereal.
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Not always so easy. May depend on how card-user-friendly vs how merchant friendly your card is. Had a dispute to the tune of about $90 IIRR with an online background checking service that had a guarantee of sorts that if they didn’t get you the info your money back. I had them dead to rights and had evidence of failed search. They didn’t get me the info. I disputed the charge. Merchant disputed my dispute. The card company CitiBank initially suspended the charge but put it back on when the merchant squawked. When I dug into “why” basically they said in effect that it was a “he said/she said” dispute … and (though they didn’t use these words) said “Sorry dude… when it come to that we go with the merchant.” Seemed ass backwards to me that as their customer with good track record and never having disputed any charges that if in doubt they’d defer to me. Not so.
“… When I went to pay at the pay booth an extra $2 or $3 surcharge was levied for my having out of state plates which was a blatantly bogus charge…”
I’m in Oregon and assure you (a) that IS a blatently bogus charge. I’ve never even heard of it being tried. And (b) If you’d wanted to you could have gotten them to back down fast by saying something like “lets’ get the cops on the phone and tell both of us if this surcharge is legal.”
Oregon and New Jersey are the only two states where it is illegal to pump your own gas. When I moved here 15 years ago I was sort of annoyed by that. Now I’m used to it. And the vast majority of pump jockies are polite and friendly… despite doing a boring unhealthy low paying job.
If they’d stop the idiotic practice of pricing things with prices ending with 99, or 98 cents the need for coin change on cash transactions would go way down.
It’s a real insult to our intelligence to believe that if we think we really shouldn’t be paying $8 for the bottle of wine (for budget or other reasons) that we can be conned into thinking it’s OK to buy it for $7.98. Or that lowest end Hyundai Accent is OK to go look at because MRSP is $15,925, but I would rule it out if MSRP was $16,000.
Yeah I know but when they price the item at $6 like good little boys, then add the 7.25% sales tax you still have a total of $6.11. Can’t win.