My grandmother used to say "Excuse me, I'm just going to spend a penny."

My cousin lives in Bolder, CO and started just throwing all change below a quarter on the sidewalk outside the restaurant 20 years ago. He hated the jingle in his pockets. He figured some kid or homeless person would pick up the change and put it to better use that he would.

I don't use cash for many things now days. Just the other day at the grocery store close to me they had the credit card machines go down. It was cash only, and I had to pay with cash. I just threw the coins in small wicker basket I have on a shelf in my closet. When it gets full I cash it in. It has been many long years for it to get to 1/2 way full. It may take another 10 or more years before I ever cash it in at this rate.

The USA had our own coin crisis a few year back.
Credit card or rounding-up only.

It makes sense for high-volume businesses to structure prices/tax to round out to an even number.

Mexican Pesos used to contain silver worth more than the face value..

What is a penny and why would you want it?

Ahem, to put through the souvenir penny masher at museums and stuff. I have a cache of pre-1982 US 1c coins just for that purpose. Yes, I am a geek. Once they shifted to copper-clad zinc in 1983 they don't mash so nicely and are streaky with the Zn.

And we are still blessed with the nearly obsolete coin due to a few Abe-loving Illinoinians and the massive zinc lobby. Kind of like allegedly that it's the linen industry and Crane Paper in MA keeping the dollar bill alive.

Now on a deeper level, what the heck is a 1/10 penny and how does that even have a place in our gas prices?

https://auto.howstuffworks.com/fuel-efficiency/fuel-consumption/why-is-9-10-added-to-gas-prices.htm