I’m sure it’s just me and my strange world, but I realized tonight I haven’t seen a $10 bill in several weeks. It seems in every cash exchange I’m getting back two fives in instances needing a ten. I suppose my mind had registered it subconsciously some time ago, but only became cognizant at a gas station earlier tonight. I had about $16 in change due and the clerk had to call out “we need more fives again!” to his manager to give me three of them. I looked through my wallet for a ten. Every Federal Reserve note in there except the scarce $10. Strange.
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You are not alone in this situation. $10 bills are pretty scarce where I live (I live on Canada’s East Coast), but not as scarce as the half dollar – yet. People are either paying with $20 or $5 bills, or paying with debit or credit card. Most places I go to, I get two $5 bills in my change in instances that would warrant a $10 bill. The number of $10 bills in circulation has been in decline since possibly sometime in the 1980s. They’re continuously declining to this day and beyond. $10 bills don’t buy much these days. The only things $10 bills can buy now are a single beer in a bar, cigarettes, and meals at A&W, McDonald’s, Burger King, or other fast-food places. Yes, it seems as if the only things $10 bills can buy now are things that all have something in common – addiction. But demand for the $5 bill is so high – much higher than that of the $10 bill. According to stats, there were over 100,000,000 $10 bills in circulation in Canada in 2006, an increase as opposed to 90,000,000+ in 1996, but I have a gut feeling that number only increased because of people who have a desire to hoard such rarely seen banknote if they get any from the bank. They will not spend them unless it’s all they got left. The $5 bill can buy a lot more items than $10 bills can. For example, you can buy a muffin or donut, plus a coffee, with a $5 bill. Or a bag of chips, or a bar and a can of Pepsi. All I can say is, in Canada, or at least in some provinces, $10 bills will end up ceasing to exist when demand hits an all-time low, and eventually all the banks in my province will stop ordering $10 bills in favor of more $5 bills, thus labeling the $10 bill “half dollar scarce” and my desire for $10 bills will end up dying. I do admit, I had a money obsession for nearly 30 years now, and it has weakened greatly in the last decade. The only issue I have with money is with the scarce $10 bills. Every time I go to a bank, I request a lot of $10 bills, seeing I am obsessed over such banknote because of scarcity. Cashiers don’t have them anymore, and if they do have them, they won’t give them out. Sad and pathetic. But if the $10 bill goes the way of the half dollar someday, then my money obession, as a whole, will die completely. I couldn’t care less about the other denominations (especially the $5 and $20 bills, seeing they are too common; and to me, the $100 and $50 bills have lost their obsessive value around 2005). Canada doesn’t have a completely scarce banknote right now, but if $10 bills continue to decline in usage, the $10 bill will eventually be labeled “the half dollar of banknotes”. Man, how I miss 1984 so much.