SAVE Award 2011 Ideas

Simply stop minting the penny. It wouldn't be missed and the government would save vast amounts in acquisition, labor, distribution, and mgt costs.

Replace paper money and coins with rechargeable /reloadable digital money. It stays in my hand the whole time while swiping it at the store. No loose change. No germs from the dollar bills passed from hands to hands. No more counterfeit bills.

The United States should replace its paper money with polymer banknotes. Australia has been using polymer banknotes since 1996 with great success, and Canada has recently announced it will be switching to polymer for its currency. Polymer is a more durable material compared with paper, which will save costs associated with the printing of money. Additionally, polymer can be embedded with more security features compared... more »

Allow stores to round the price of cash purchases to the nearest nickle or dime. Transactions ending in .x1 and .x2 are rounded down to .x0, transactions ending in .x3 and .x4 are rounded to .x5, transactions ending in .x6 and .x7 are rounded to .x5, and transactions ending in .x8 and .x9 are rounded to .x0. This would be used only for CASH purchases, and is applied at the cash registered on the total price of the purchase,... more »