Rounding in Real Life

I am sitting in the airport as I write this.  I am heading home from spending six days in Croatia. I stopped by bakeries every day because there were so many.  Each one had something different.

The one thing they all shared was a distaste for dealing with the smallest coins.  I seldom saw anything smaller than the .10kn piece.

One of the ladies referred to the smallest coins, .05 and .01 kn, as fractional pieces.  Many times rather than giving back exact change, they’d round the amount to something nice.  I purchased two items at a grocery store for a total of $14.98kn. I gave the cashier a 20kn note and she gave me a 5kn coin in return.

As far as I can tell, this is standard practice for people who pay with cash. If they use a credit card, it makes no difference.  I admit at the beginning before I got the hang of the money system, I didn’t realize what was happening but by the time I left, I understood the pattern.

I am not sure how it effects their bookkeeping but it seems everyone does it whether they are a farmer at the year round market or they work in the supermarket.  On the other hand, most prices are set so they end with larger amounts and the total usually includes the taxes. I have only really had issues at stores ending in .99 at the grocery store, bedding store, or other places.

So now you’ve seen a real life example of rounding where it is done for convince.  Let me know what you think, I would love to hear. We