Tag: money

Q is for Queen Elizabeth II on stamps and coins

No living person can appear on US postage or money.

Because it’s been 60 years since she ascended to the throne in the United Kingdom, there have been a number of commemorative coins and stamps issued with the image of Queen Elizabeth II in 2012. But long before that, QEII’s image has been showing up around the world.

I came across The Portraits of Queen Elizabeth II, as they appear on World Banknotes, which is an interesting evolution of the Queen, now in her ninth decade.

Her portrait was first featured on coins in 1953 issued in Great Britain, Australia, Canada, Fiji, Jamaica, Malaya & British Borneo, Mauritius, New Zealand, South Africa and Southern Rhodesia. Whether or not she is wearing her crown depended on the monarchy’s relationship with the country.

Someone asked: How many countries coins has Queen Elizabeth II been on? The best answer seems to be from Sap, posted 1/27/2010, from which I will note here (since the permalink doesn’t work):

* circulation coins used to have Queen’s portrait but no longer do so today
# only commemoratives have featured the Queen’s portrait

Australia, Bahamas*, Belize, Canada, Cyprus*, Dominica#, Gambia*, Great Britain, Grenada#, Jamaica*, Kiribati#, Mauritius*, New Zealand, Nigeria*, Papua New Guinea#, Saint Kitts & Nevis#, Saint Lucia#, Saint Vincent & Grenadines#, Seychelles*, Tuvalu, Uganda*, Zambia*, plus Fiji (“a Republic and expelled from the Commonwealth but still has the Queen on all its coinage”). This doesn’t even count the various former colonies in Africa, the Caribbean (including current Guyana), Hong Kong, and what is now Malaysia and Singapore, all of which had had QEII on the money in the day.

Check out a timeline of the Queen’s appearance on Australian coins.

As for postage, you find useful Queen Elizabeth II: A Portrait in Stamps (Paperback) By Fay Sweet. The description of the book: “Since her accession to the throne in 1952, the Queen’s image on UK stamps has become one of the most familiar and reproduced icons of all time. This book illustrates the reign of Her Majesty as celebrated on Britain’s stamps.” Here’s a List of British postage stamps. This commercial vendor has a detailed QEII section.

In Canada, there is have been annual definitive stamps bearing the Queen’s likeness. I couldn’t find as definite a piece about QEII on stamps as I did for coins, but I expect a large overlap.

All of this is very, well, foreign, to me, since no living person can appear on US postage or money. There will postage stamps commemorating former Presidents a year after they die. The FDR dime and the JFK half-dollar were both issued in the year following their respective deaths (1946, 1964, respectively).

ABC Wednesday – Round 10

Checking the Checking Account QUESTIONS

Do YOU check your bank balance online, and if so, how often?

There was this column in the local paper a few weeks ago about a fitness club that kept debiting someone’s checking account after the person had canceled the service. Terrible, awful, etc.

Then another columnist picked up the story, noting: “As someone who logs on to my bank account about once every week-and-a-half and who makes sure every charge on her credit card statement has a matching receipt, I can’t fathom how an adult would allow this to happen.” And the subsequent commentators also had fun at the victim’s expense, how she should have noticed the $20/month over a THREE YEAR PERIOD. And that’s true, of course.

But in attacking the victim, more than a few of them showed their own idiosyncrasies:
“I check my account multiple times a day and if my checkbook is off even .01 i have to find it.”
“I check my account Every.Single.Day. Even multiple times a day. I even have checkbook register app on my phone. If it doesn’t “add up”, I freak out.”

Since I’ve gotten access to online banking, I tend to check my primary checking account once, maybe twice a week, but never as frequently as daily. Seems checking multiple times a day is a sign of ADHD or at least obsession.

Do YOU check your bank balance online, and if so, how often? Do you balance your checkbook to the penny? I haven’t for years; both my wife and I tend to round the check amount up. For her, it’s a source of secret money; for me, it covers up some automatic withdrawal that I had forgotten that I had set up.

Helping Those Who Ask For Money

One of the factors about giving out money isn’t whether it’s a legit request; if they’re lying, it’s on them, not me.

Periodically, but especially in November and December, I contemplate my personal policy with regards to those who come up to me and ask me for money. Some folks, including a former pastor of mine, are adamant that one ought not to; there are registered charities for that purpose. I’ve not been comfortable with that absolutist position, though, and I take it on a case-by-case basis.

There was a day this fall, though, where my instincts were just…off. Something had happened at work earlier in the day that frustrated me. When I got off the bus downtown, a guy asked me for money to buy some food. As it turned out, we were right in front of a Subway sub shop. My first instinct was to say, “Hey, why don’t we go in here, and I’ll buy you a sub?” I had the time (it was a Thursday and choir was in an hour) and the means (a $5 sub wouldn’t break me). Moreover, I wouldn’t have to worry that the money was going to be used for another (“inappropriate”) purpose, and, by going into a well-lit restaurant, I would feel relatively safe and secure. But my answer was “no”; and it was as though I was watching myself say that, because it surely couldn’t have been me. It bothered me for DAYS, because my grumpiness had robbed me of the opportunity to do good.

It didn’t help that the lectionary reading a few weeks later was Matthew 25, all that good stuff about seeing the hungry and feeding them.

That wasn’t the only thing that went wrong that day. After that incident, I then went to the library and gave someone what turned out to be bad advice about whether he had time to get a coffee before his computer time came up; I didn’t realize that the computer clocks were 10 minutes fast, and he missed his turn and had to rejoin the queue, so I felt bad about giving such lousy advice. I was so distraught that I didn’t even end up going to choir, but rather ended up calling a few of my friends, none of whom were home.

One of the factors about giving out money isn’t whether it’s a legit request; if they’re lying, it’s on them, not me. It IS about security, though, and I am loath to pull out my wallet in front of strangers, especially at night. I’ve recently started carrying dollar coins – another good use for them – which I can dig out of my pocket, which is also easier.

Do any of you struggle with this?

Dollar Coin Gathers Dust

There is only one way to get Americans to use dollar coins, and that is to do away with the paper dollar.

A couple of months ago, ABC News, following up on an NPR story, did an “expose” involving the US unused, and purportedly unwanted, dollar coins.

“Passed by Congress in 2005, the Presidential $1 Coin Act ordered the mint to make millions of coins to honor every dead president, but not even Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., one of the co-sponsors of the original bill, uses the legal tender.” It goes on to explain that these coins are being stored, at no small expense, in warehouses, which does appear to be a waste of money.

Implicit in the ABC News story was that the obvious solution is to get Congress to get the Mint to stop making the coins.

Well, that’s one way to look at it, but I would suggest something else, which is in step with this coin expert:
“As for the U.S. circulating dollar coins, virtually everyone agrees that there is only one way to get Americans to use them, and that is to do away with the paper dollar. Doing so would also save a lot of money since dollar coins, like other circulating coinage, lasts for decades, while paper bills have a much shorter life span. Many people seem reluctant to give up their paper dollars because they do not want to carry around dollar coins, but unless you have a lot of them in your pocket they are really not that heavy. They weigh about the same amount as a quarter, and most of us have no problem carrying quarters in our pockets or purses. I am sure we could make the adjustment if we had to.”

Using the Presidential dollar coin would have some other benefits. Americans might actually learn who their Presidents were. Moreover, I think the notion that “nobody wants them” is self-fulfilling. Except for one branch of one bank, I cannot regularly FIND the new releases of the Presidential $1 coin around Albany. If more people actually saw them, they would use them, and might even collect them. They’ve worked in every vending machine I’ve tried.

As I understand it, when Canada got rid of its dollar bill in favor of a coin – the Loonie – back in the 1980s, there was some resistance. But, as I noticed during our family visit to Toronto and Peterborough, Ontario last month, it’s no longer a big deal.

WAIT…

I have late word that the United States cannot get rid of its dollar bill because it would be a threat to its freedom. Frankly, I’m not sure what that means. Maybe we’re all Stonecutters who are resistant to “foreign” things such as the metric system, even as we drink our two-liter bottles of Pepsi.

The Money Issue QUESTION

I took out a credit card to transfer the charges from another credit card. The latter card is a zero interest card until February 2012, which will facilitate me paying it off without extra charges.

I love money. I hate money.

After my mom died, my sister came across some letters my mom wrote to no one in particular – they’d be journaling entries, I suppose, had she put them in a diary. One in particular from November 1995, was about how quickly my father was burning through their retirement savings. My mother was very thrifty, very good with money, but my father was…not, let’s just say.

When I graduated from college, I wasn’t making enough money to pay for my student loans right away, so it wasn’t until about five years after I graduated that I was able to secure a credit card. It was a Sears card, with which I bought a clock/radio for $12.95. I lived too much on my credit cards, especially when I was unemployed or a grad student.

But at the beginning of 2011, I had no credit card debt at all, due in no small part because I won some money on a TV game show a decade ago, and the much more disciplined attitude of my spouse. And now, I can’t STAND to have credit card debt.

It became clear that the money I spent around my mother’s funeral I would not be able to pay off in a month, so right away, I did something I almost never do; I took out a credit card to transfer the charges from another credit card. The latter card is a zero-interest card until February 2012, which will facilitate me paying it off without extra charges.

Now, while I’m pretty much off desiring STUFF, I still wish I had more money for EXPERIENCES – travel, specifically. We ARE taking a trip to Canada this year. But if I were less disciplined – and in my heart of hearts, I’m really not that disciplined, I just force myself to act as though I were – I’d be going to a lot more plays and concerts.

Oh, and I hate paying taxes, not just because I can’t get that favorable GE rate, but because I’m a 1040A or 1040EZ (i.e., simple) guy, but since I’ve gotten married, I have had to deal with additional schedules involving various deductions.

So what’s YOUR attitude towards money?

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The original version of Money, by Barrett Strong, co-written by Berry Gordy, the very first Motown hit.

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