Poll: Do You Know How to Count Change Back to a Customer?

My mom taught me how to count change when I was little. Any time I would have money to spend, even if it was just $1 she had given me to buy candy, she would make me count my change to make sure it was correct.

When I worked at Wal-Mart, I was training a new cashier, The customer paid with a $10, but the trainee accidentally punched $100 into the register, and with out even batting an eye, started counting out twenties to give this woman the change the register said was due. I stopped him, pointed out what he had done, and he didn't know how to figure out how much change she was actually owed. I told him that he could either subtract $90 from what was displayed on the screen or count it back to her. He didn't know what count it back meant. I showed him how to start with the cents part of her total, count it up to $1, then add dollar increments up to $5, then add the five to make ten. He was amazed - had never seen that done before. You would have thought I had just explained the secret of life to him.

6 moms found this helpful

believe it or not, my first job, at Walmart, was back when they trained people to have excellent customer service. they taught me to count change back correctly (UP, not down). if your total was 12.74- That's .75, 13 dollars, fourteen, fifteen, and twenty.

i think i might have seen one person do it correctly in the past ten years or so.

honestly, it's a life skill. if the "poor girl" gets screwed, well, sorry. that's life. i won't be the one to screw her over, but yeah, it will probably happen.

and don't be fooled by all these positive answers. people don't do it. ever. i suppose those of us answering here are not those working in supermarkets and stores :) cuz they don't. seriously. and i notice that they don't, all the time.

6 moms found this helpful

Of course I know and I usually end up helping cashiers. What really gets them is when is when I give them odd change so that I get a quarter back. LOL

I worked at Target from the time I was 16 until I was 22. I did cashering, Guest Service & Jewelry counter. Back then (and I'm only 32 now) you didn't rely on the registers quite as much.

I am glad to know that in school my son has learned about counting change and I make them do it when they pay for something themselves. It is a great life skill to have and it's sad that so many people have trouble with it.

4 moms found this helpful

Not only count change back... But also calculate the tax in my head.

Google Dicks Drive In Seattle... And you'll find a 1950s (for real, not for show) local institution.

In addition to doing tuition reimbursement for employees after 1 year (4-6k per year 10 years ago), they ALSO required 'instant service' part of which meant doing all sums (and ghe tax owed) in your head. About 10x faster than typing it in.

The only time we plugged if into the cash register was when someone thought we were wrong. We never were (seriously, about 1,000 orders per day per cashier means you get fast at adding & dividing).

What people didn't realize was that instead of ghe apx 9% sales tax, they kept voting to up tourism taxes (often 4-6 times a year)... Which had taxes when I worked there ranging all the way up to 12.3%.

Sigh. I just tried to google current %s, and can't find it.

Our manager would laminate the newest bill whenever it passed, to prove the 11.4 or 12.whatever tax WAS the tax for persnickety people.

I'm still (lo these many years later), still halfway decent. In usually within a dollar of my mental calculations on a $100 order in the grocery store (not actually trying, just noting prices as I shop), and within 5cents on a $20 or under order. Again. Just sorta stabbing at it. Which is kinda fun. If I actually know the subtotal AND tax (like 8.8), its right 100% of the time.

Yay Dicks!!!

(This was the policy before the brother died. I hear they type in the orders now. Thwibbt. Cheaters!!! 60 years of the rest of us rubbed our neurons together to get a spark!)

4 moms found this helpful

Yes, I know how to count change back. As do my children.

They have had lemonade stands and helped me with garage sales.

My parents reiterated the importance of math and doing it right - not only in your checkbook but in counting money as well....and school - I am from the OLD SCHOOL where Reading, Writing and Arithmetic were taught....

I have taught my kids to start with the change - to get to the next whole dollar and then the dollars...

4 moms found this helpful

I know how and learned through having retail jobs when I was younger. But I've never used that way, I've always just stated what their change is and spread the bills out while i'm handing them so they can see. Like others have said it takes too long and sometimes people are in a hurry. Even to this day i still do it that way and i don't work in retail but have to use a cash register to charge people fees.
Besides they should be smart enough to add it up in their head and know they got the correct change, it isn't rocket science.

I too am more shocked when let's say my total is $10.15 and I hand $20 and then decide after searching that I have the 15¢ and they suddenly don't realize I should get $10 in change. The register has already told them the change is $9.85 and the idea of adding that 15¢ on just doesn't click.

This isn't related but I despise when I've swiped a customer's credit card at work and then hand it back and a minute later they'll say 'did you give me my card back?'
I've always felt like saying 'Um no, I kept it with all the other cards I have in my collection and I'm going on a huge shopping spree after work'.
Don't they get that it is almost robotic to hand it back just like it is for them to put it away without even thinking??? Ughh.

3 moms found this helpful

What, you counted back your change to the girl? You don't see that as kind of rude? I have never had a delivery person count back change. They give me the change, I count it and then I hand back their tip.

My first retail job taught me how they wanted it counted back, the next job taught me a different way. So far I have found there are over five ways to count back money.

Just when you are standing there at the door, with no surface to count it out on, it seems really strange that you expected your money counted back.
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I find the answers interesting because it doesn't seem anyone gets the why of counting back. Like in banking we were taught to count it one way on our end, a second way into the adding machine tape, and a third way back to the customer. All counting back is is an error check.

So your put the number in your register and it says the change is 16.49 cents, you count out the change largest to smallest a ten, a five, a one. You count it back to the customer opposite starting from the total so change (not counted out) is 24, hand the one, 25, the five is 30 the ten is 40.

It is error checking, it is actually not about the customer at all and could be done in her head since there wasn't a counter.

3 moms found this helpful

I know how because back when I got my first job people still used cash. I think more and more young people today are not learning this skill because cash is something people are using less and less.

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I do - I have had the same issues... only at Petsmart. I needed change to send in for the kids school pictures (they take cash only for Fall pictures), so I paid $5 of my bill with a $20 & the rest with a gift card. When it come to change she was lost... she did tell me the registar wasn't telling her how much change to give me. I had to tell her she owed me $15 back.

As I have said before - technology is both a blessing & also a curse. Just depends on how you use it... Even my kid's teacher have told me spelling is not longer a required skill since we have spell check on computers - she wishing they could quite teaching such a useless subject.

As to who taught me to count back change... they did go over it as well as how to use a check book in math class in I think 5 grade. Also, selling veggies/eggs at a roadside stand in our front yard as a kid. Plus, it was part of the registar training class we had to go through when I started my first job at a local grocery store, but they also taught us customer courtesy - which a lot of people lack these days as well.

Sorry, but it saddens me that people don't have these basic skills anymore :(

3 moms found this helpful

I learned at one of my first jobs when I was 18. I was an optician and we didn't have a cash register. There was a calculator, but it was so much easier and faster just to count the change back. It's so easy, I am really shocked when people don't know how to do it. I have already taught my 11-year old daughter how to do it. She uses it when she sells girl scout cookies or helps out at our garage sales.

3 moms found this helpful

I don't like my change counted back to me. Tell me how much I'm getting, count it for yourself to make sure you're giving me the right amount, and then hand it to me. I will count it again, for myself. I don't want to sit there and hold out my hand while you count it out to me. I find it annoying.

Also, I agree with Jo.

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My Mom taught me when I was a teen and I had to use it in my first job at Gimbel's Department Store in 1974.

How many remember Gimbel's?

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Yes. I learned it when I worked at Wendy's - back in the early 80's.

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My mom taught me when I was little. I, too, am appalled at how few people know how to count change back.

I don't think it was rude to count the change back to her. You were just showing her that, while you were counting, you were being honest and not cheating her. That's how I would do it!

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I've been a customer in a fast food place and had to teach the cashier how to count back the change after they messed up and closed the drawer on another customer w/o giving him his change! The girl had no clue how to do that and had grabbed a calculator and was searching the register tape -- since he was right behind me, I heard his total and saw what he gave her, so once the manager opened the drawer, I walked her thru how to do it! Too funny to see the stunned look on her face - and the manager kinda shook her head as she knew me and knew I would not mess up the gal's drawer!

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My first job was in retail and my trainer was impressed that I already knew how to do it. My Dad had taught me when I was around 8 or 9, he said I needed to know so I wouldn't be cheated when going to the store. I'm going to ask my 11 year old nephew if he knows, thanks!

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Yes, of course. We were taught to do basic subtraction in school! I'm 45. When I briefly worked in a supermarket when I was 16-17, we didn't have scanners and automatic registers back then. We had to count the change. I already knew how to do that kind of subtraction! In more recent decades, this has been a problem for young people

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I know how to do it, but don't, and prefer it not be done to me. Just give me my 16 dollars change. Even if it is counted back to me I will take it and count it myself.

I don't think its a right or wrong way, if she gave you the 16 dollars why does it matter? How will she get screwed, unless she didn't know how much change to give? Everyone does math in their own way and as long as you get the correct answer, it's neither right or wrong.

I work part-time at sporting events at the local university and if I took the time to do that to every person in my line it would be so long, people would be pissed. I always give correct change. When I work events where there isn't a register and its all mind math, I do it for my personal edification as I pull the money from the till and then only if there was coins involved. I would still just hand you your change. I can total up an order, in my head, as you ask for the items, then take your money and know the exact change just as quick.

At someone's door I def would just hand you your correct change.

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Good observation! Kids today don't have as much experience handling currency, as electronic payments are so readily accessible.

I had always watched my mom do it when she was volunteering at school or church sales/events, but I learned when I was 10 years old and was working in a family friend's cotton candy stand at the Minnesota State Fair. I also sold a TON of World's Finest candy bars when I was in high school, so I had to count back the change all the time.

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I know how.
We had math problems for it at school.
I WANT my change counted back to me.
I've caught too many errors (usually not in my favor) when people try to gloss over it or not do it.
It's too easy to 'accidentally' short a customer then pocket the difference.
Every 7-11 clerk I've ever seen knows how to count back change and they do it lightning fast.

2 moms found this helpful

Yup! Learned it at my first job at 16 where the cash registers didn't tell you the change. It is a life skill which so many young kids today never learn. It's sad that things like this are no longer taught.

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Happens to my family all the time. Sadly, not many young people seem to have this skill. Makes for an uncomfortable transaction.

I learned myself around 13, first service type job and once I got it terribly wrong I made a point of asking my more experienced co-workers to help me out. The problem is these days the skill is just not used enough so kids don't get the practice. Computers are so good at taking care of those little matters for us aren't they? Sometimes I wonder where it will lead us.

2 moms found this helpful

I know how to (taught myself after seeing it done a couple of times, I guess), but I prefer that they not count it back to me. Usually I am in a hurry and it's faster if I do it in my head after I glance at the change. I would have been fine with "Here's your change." or "Out of $40. $16 is your change."

I guess since she tried to count the change back to you first, you counting it back for her isn't condescending, but that's how I took it when I read it. She's not going to get screwed if she can add and subtract correctly.

2 moms found this helpful

OMG...that is so sad! Goes back to what I always say about the Tech-generation ...they know nothing! UUUGH! I can count change, I grew up in the real world that taught you these simple things. My first job was in an old fashioned card store, with an old fashioned register and there was no choice but to do the math and count your customers change back to them. This included the nickels and pennies. I feel sorry for this girl, because someone is definitely gonna see her coming and take advantage.

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My first job was a parking lot attendant for football games and the fair, so I had no cash register/calculator. I had to learn to count back change. When I managed a fast food restaurant I insisted my cashiers count change back to the customer. I seldom use cash anymore because I like to collect points on my credit card, so I don't know if many cashiers still count back change or not. Too many people depend on calculators.
After reading the answers, I don't understand how a cashier counting back change to the customer could be annoying. All cashiers should be doing this, for the customer and for themselves.

2 moms found this helpful

I can not tell you how much it bothers me when someone "counts back" my change.
Listen, if the total is $14.52 and you (universal) pay with a $20 the person counting your change should say, "48 cents gives you 15 and 5 gives you 20" It helps if you actually KNOW how to count back...I can't tell you how many times I give someone money back.
It's even worse when I give someone change to even out the total and the kid looks at me like a deer in headlights and doesn't know what to do with it. Sigh. If they have already typed it into the computer then they are screwed. lol
Laura

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I remember it plain as day - I had started working as a cashier at a KFC and always let the register tell me what the change should be, but one day there was some trouble with the register and I had to make change myself, and I was having trouble. Another a cashier, a lady a few years older than me, pushed me aside and took over. "Watch me," she said, and then proceeded to count back the change, starting with the coinage. It was a lightbulb moment for me. :)

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It's something that I always remember knowing how to do, because I would pay attention when someone was giving me change when I was a customer. My mom used to send us to the corner store when we were maybe 7 or 8 years old to pick up things like milk or bread or cheese and I remember counting my change from those trips.

I worked at a fast-food restaurant in high school and I was put on the drive-through window the first day and stayed there forever because I was able to calculate change. There was a delay between taking an order and getting paid for it, so by the time car #1 came to the window, you may have been on order #4 on the register. We had a running list of the order amounts so we knew what to ask for from the customer but had to - gasp! - calculate the change ourselves. I would imagine that in the 20+ years since then they've figured out a way for the computers to suspend each order and have the register do this, but this is how it was in the early 1990's. There were very few of us who could actually do this without a calculator, which is just pathetic.

1 mom found this helpful

I know HOW to do it... But I don't. It actually annoys me when people do that... I don't know why, just a weird pet peeve. However, I worked as a cashier for 3 years and never once gave the customer the wrong amount of change. I triple count the change before giving it back to them. Of course if anyone asked me to count it back to them I would, but no one did... So I didn't.

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I guess. But I actually don't do it that way. I prefer to just subtract the total cost from the cash paid and count the change out. Just because that's how I do math in my head.

The pizza was $24. You handed her $40. The change is $16. Count out $16. You know: " $10... $15... $16 change."
For me, when I am dealing with money, it is easier to count the larger bills first.

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Yes. I don't remember anyone teaching me how.

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This is yet another symptom of the current educational system having FAILED America. I'm a math teacher (in case you couldn't guess! :) ) No one is REQUIRED to have basic math skills any more, even in the most low-level (ie burger flipping) jobs. The cash registers do all of the work now, even to the extent of actually distributing the coins FOR the cashier!! God forbid we ask them to at least know what the value of each of the coins is.

Basically, with everything digital (cash registers, then most people paying on credit/debit cards) people are no longer required to be able to do basic math in their head (or at all for that matter).

Sadly, my children will not be allowed to go through their life like that. I will harass them into being able to do this kind of stuff. Poor kids... :)

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I was just saying to a friend the other day...these kids take all this high level math (trig, calculus, etc) but can't do basic counting!!! Math that you use almost every day is difficult. That's what should be taught...that and keeping a checkbook. I haven't used any of the high school math I've been taught, EVER!

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I'm 53 and I was taught when I had my first part time job at the local 5 & 10 in 1976. I am constantly amazed when cashiers don't know how to make change. I remember my 9th grade math teacher predicting this when he noticed, while at McDonalds, that the cash register buttons said "hamburger" and "french fries" instead of numbers. That was 1973!

We have all become accustomed to technology doing our work for us. If we lose the electical grid one day we will be doomed. Even my library is now on my kindle... How will I be able to read if there's no electricity?

1 mom found this helpful

I do know how to count out change. That was the first thing that was taught to cashiers back in the day. The cash registrar that I worked on did not have a change meter. I had to manually count all the change, and if you were “short” it was coming out of your little paycheck! Awwww the good old days…

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This is what happens when cash registers do all the work for you. I learned at 16 how to count change at my first job in a low end department store. People usually were very patient me when I first started learning.

Yes, I can count change fine in dollars, but I'm not so good at it in foreign currency! LOL!

D.

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I deal with this all the time and it is so sad that young people are so dependent on computers and calculators.

I grew up and started working long before computers ran everything so at that time I had no choice but to use my brain. The registers did not tell you how much change to give you had to count it out.

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I sure do. My kids are learning how to in school along with keeping a check book and writing checks and so forth. It amazes me when you hand some cashiers money and they type it in and then you go oh wait i have such and such change so you can get back an even amount and they just look at you. very sad

1 mom found this helpful

Yes, Yes I do.

I worked at my BF's families' Airport gift shop when I was a Freshmen in HS...and was taught then.

What? You would like a pack of gum for .75 and you are paying with a $10?
.25 makes $1...2, 3, 4, 5 and $5 makes $10. Thank You for shopping Cornucopia Gifts! :)

*And you can count back change to someone in your own hand and then hand it to them...I am surprised by so many answers saying they don't like to hold their hand out and wait for it to be counted for them? Weird?

1 mom found this helpful

Yes, I did learn that, although I don't know how or when exactly I learned. My guess would be my mom or another adult in charge when I worked at 4-H fundraising booths - bake sales or similar.

I've tried to teach my kids, since both have worked at scout fundraisers. They didn't seem to think they needed the skill, so I'm not sure how well they remember :-(

Yes. I do. I worked at a gas station to pay my way through college. But I didn't always count it back like that. Sometimes I would just say $2.16 is your change and hand it to them. That was a perfectly acceptable way to make change.

I learned in math class way back in maybe 4th or 5th grade. I still count it out to them even if I know it's $10.20. I start at "The total was nine dollars and eighty cents so 10 cents makes nine ninety and ten cents makes it ten dollars even then ten dollars makes twenty.

Never made a mistake when counting it out the right way. I can also make the right change and count it back the right way if they give me odd change to make even quarters or an odd dollar to make it a five or ten instead. That confuses even some cashiers that have been at this a long time.

I can't tell you how many times I have done that, given the cashier a $20 with perhaps thirteen cents for a twelve dollar and sixty three cent bill. They give me the thirteen cents back and say that's not what I need....I ask them to put it in the register like I gave it to them then they get all surprised when they need to give me back six dollars and fifty cents.

I have a friend who will work as a car hop any day of the week. She makes so many tips from it. She will take their food to them and they give her the money. She will start counting out their change to them and they just tell her to keep it, they don't want to wait while it's counted.

I do, but I don't know that I was taught. It's just like working backward to check a math problem after finding the answer. 5-3=2. Okay, so add the 3 back and get the 5 again.

Yes I do. I learned when I was about 8 from my aunt. She was running a yard sale and taught me. I also passed this skill on to my Girl Scout troop when they were in 2nd/3rd grade (most of the parents couldn't do it either!)

nope, that's why i don't volunteer for money things, like the scholastic books sale.

I get so confused by numbers and am not quick thinking like that. horrible youth math trauma i can not get over. but since i'm almost 40 and am still alive, i'll keep bluffing.

I think I learned this in first or second grade. I remember that we had a play "store" in the back of the classroom with a little cash register and play money, and we took turns buying things and counting the money, making change, etc. At the time, we thought we were playing, but we learned a good skill.

My kids know how to count change, because around here, in second grade you learn how to do it. How sad that a girl who is old enough to be working doesn't know! :(

I do! And sometimes I teach store and fast-food clerks how to do it, especially when their computers go down or they don't have a machine handy.

I still recall doing some homework about change in elementary school. I had been sick for a couple of days and I was catching up. My mother taught me how to do it, starting with the amount owed and then counting up to the amount given as I handed the change back - fast and easy. It turned out that all the teacher wanted was how many quarters, how many dollars, etc., were necessary to give back, so I was marked down (and was offended, in my elementary-school way). But Mom's teaching was the really helpful one.

So I'm glad I can pass it on. These kids are not born knowing this and they haven't been taught, so I may as well give it a try. Isn't it a great thought that a computer can't do everything for us? We can actually help other people learn to think without one!

Calculate the TAX in my head? Can't do that. But my husband can.

Well I knew when I was in school but the first time I really had to do it myself was when I was a bartender.

I know how to do it, but I was never taught, and never actually used the method when handling cash. I suggest that this girl was perhaps feeling under pressure, scrutinised and just didn't have her light bulb moment. I bet she'd get it OK without an impatient customer waiting for her.

yes I know how to count change back. When I was in high school I worked at in n out burger and back then (lol, I'm only 32), they did not have a register that you typed in the amount and it told you how much change to give back. We had to do it all. So I learned very quickly!