Single dollar bills

Talka

I'm running a study for my Psychology department that pays $8 per session. I'm paying subjects with my own money right now, keeping subjects' info/signatures as the necessary documentation for my end of quarter compensation.

However, $8 is an awkward amount of money. I'll be running 50 more subjects, so I need fifty $5 bills, and one hundred and fifty $1 bills.

What's the best way to get $1 bills? ATMs don't have $1 bills as far as I can tell. I went to a bank and asked in person to withdraw a bunch of $1 bills from my account, and I was made to put up with some BS bureaucracy stonewalling for about fifteen minutes before I had to run for a meeting (they were willing to give me only fifty $1 bills, so still I'm one hundred short).

Is there a normal procedure for getting smaller bills?

Xaquin

what bank do you use? that's kind of the point of banks really.

I don't have any advice except try again and let them know that's what they're there for.

edit: well one of the points of banks anyway

Darkewolfe

Yep. If your bank can't do it, change banks I guess. Banks give you your money, in the form you request it.

Willeth

Try going back to the bank and asking once more. If they let you take out fifty again, you only need to do it three times.

The only real reason that the bank has for no giving you all the bills is because it'll unusually deplete their stock. Banks have to order bills in - if you inform them in advance, they may be able to add it to their order and it won't be an issue.

altmann

I used to have a job that entailed getting a lot of cash out at once. Like, over $12,000 in assorted bills and change.

If your bank won't give you cash, that is INSANE. Like, it STUNS me. If I walked into a bank and they weren't ready to give me $5k in assorted bills I would probably change banks right there and then.

Go back to your bank and DEMAND cash.

Talka

Well then, sounds like I'm in for another trip to the bank this afternoon. I'll let you all know how that goes.

Djeet

You could include $2 bills in your remuneration.

Go to the post office and use the vending machine to buy a single stamp with a $20. It should provide change in $1 coins.

See if the bank will give you $1 coins. No one seems to like the dollar coins so the bank probably will give you as many of those as you'd like.

Or maybe you could head to the strip club and see if the dancers will make change for you? The cover charge might eat into your overhead. Don't get distracted.

Alpine

No reputable bank wouldn't have two bundles of ones somewhere in the vault

When I worked at a bank over the summer, people would withdraw four or five thousand in tens and twenties pretty regularly, just cause they didn't want to deal with fifties.

GothicLargo

I am going to echo a previous response.

Go to the bank in advance, and tell them that you will need a specific quantity of bills to stock a cashbox. They will order them in. The main reason banks don't give out large quantities of bills on demand is as has been said: it will deplete their stocks.

Banks operate on very strict calculations about how much physical cash to have on hand at a given time, a number which is determined by historical need plus known needs for businesses that need to stock cash boxes plus a small margin; because money that is sitting in stacks is not earning interest.

If you go to them and say you need to make a withdraw of a large number of small bills to stock a cash box, they can take down your needs, get them on their next delivery, and you're set.


Also, yeah... banks will generally give you as many $1 and $.50 coins as they have. You may have to wait for them to go find them though.

Xaquin

still though, $150 in ones shouldn't break the bank

haha

Esh

The bank should have TONS of ones from business deposits.

PracticalProblemSolver

Try a different branch too, the downtown branch of my bank will let you do whatever you want but the neighborhood branches have much less cash on hand.

Floowid

You are missing the obvious solution. Hang out around the exit to the local strip club. When the girls come out, I am sure they will have bra cups full of ones they would love to trade you for some 20s or 50s.

Improvolone

Floowid wrote: »

You are missing the obvious solution. Hang out around the exit to the local strip club. When the girls come out, I am sure they will have bra cups full of ones they would love to trade you for some 20s or 50s.

Do not approach strippers walking back to their car for any reason.

Thanatos

There should not be any balking whatsoever at giving you $150 in $1 bills, unless this bank branch is one of those mini-branches in, like, a grocery store or something.

dwwatermelon

Improvolone wrote: »

Floowid wrote: »

You are missing the obvious solution. Hang out around the exit to the local strip club. When the girls come out, I am sure they will have bra cups full of ones they would love to trade you for some 20s or 50s.

Do not approach strippers walking back to their car for any reason.

Yeah that sounds like a good way to get a bouncer to shove a stun gun up your ass.

scrivenerjones

Get twos instead, every bank has them and it's fewer bills to carry around.

Metalbourne

dwwatermelon wrote: »

Improvolone wrote: »

Floowid wrote: »

You are missing the obvious solution. Hang out around the exit to the local strip club. When the girls come out, I am sure they will have bra cups full of ones they would love to trade you for some 20s or 50s.

Do not approach strippers walking back to their car for any reason.

Yeah that sounds like a good way to get a bouncer to shove a stun gun up your ass.

what you need to do is stick the 20 into her gstring while she's dancing and then try to get 19 singles back.

Gafoto

scrivenerjones wrote: »

Get twos instead, every bank has them and it's fewer bills to carry around.

Do they really have that many twos? I don't see them very frequently at all.

scrivenerjones

They're still in circulation, the bank might have to get them from the vault but they almost certainly have some. You just don't get them unless you ask specifically.

illig

if you need singles quickly, stop by a supermarket... they keep several hundred dollars in singles, and thousands in 5s, 10s, 20s, etc. on hand.... if they have more than enough to last them till the next armored car pickup/drop off then they'll be more than happy to exchange you $50 or $100.

i used to work as a book keeper in supermarkets (during high school and college), and that was a common occurrence.

Talka

I went to another branch of my bank and they gave me all the singles I needed like it was the most normal thing in the world. No idea what went wrong at the other branch.

Thread closed, I guess.