No more penny!

Did you pay cash for a purchase today? Was your total rounded up or down?

Even Google has come up with a Google Doodle to honour the day. If you miss it, you can see it here.

Today is the first day of the no-more-penny era. Retailers will now be rounding up or down any cash purchases to the nearest nickel. All other methods of payments will continue to use the penny.

There are a few stories floating around suggesting retailers are somehow going to cash in on this new system by purposely pricing their items with a three, four, eight , or nine cent ending in order to “force” all their sales to round up (as opposed to down). Of course, this won’t work because the rounding occurs only on the total purchase, not individual items.

Check out CBC’s article about the first day of penny-free transactions.

Canadian charities are hoping to get their hands on some of the more than 6 billion pennies out there.

“Canadian charities are hoping to get their hands on some of the more than 6 billion pennies out there. (Graeme Roy/Canadian Press)”