One day while I was out to lunch with my coworkers, we were standing in line in a very busy fast-food restaurant. When it was my turn to pay for my purchase, I pulled out a wad of paper money from my pocket and began sorting through it one by one trying to see which denomination each bill was. My coworker, who was standing in line behind me mumbled, “Put your money away. You don’t want everyone to see it”.

I then realized that I should keep my money hidden because I never know who could be standing beside me and might want to take it for themselves.

Learning experiences can come at any time; this was one for me. Because I was sticking to the belief that I could only use my eyes to determine the denomination of a bill, I was putting myself at risk for handing the cashier too much money. Or worse, putting myself at risk of being robbed. I learned a non-visual technique to avoid these potential problems.

Using Non-visual Techniques
As for determining which denomination is which, I use a simple system. When getting back paper money from a purchase, I ask the cashier to hand me the denominations separately. That way I know which bill is which without having to expose it to curious eyes.

As for how to store the money in my wallet for quick retrieval, I use a system where each denomination of Bill gets a special fold when I put it in my wallet. For example, one-dollar bills aren’t folded. Five-dollar bills are folded in half and stored on the left side of my wallet. $10 bills are folded in half and stored on the right side of my wallet. $20 bills are folded long ways and placed next to the one-dollar bills.

So, when I know that I need to pay $15, I just take one of the folded bills from the right side and then one of the folded bills from the left side and I hand that to the cashier. I just need to stick my hand in the wallet. I don’t need to stick my nose in the wallet trying to determine which denomination is which. Different people use different systems. The only important thing is that your system works for you!

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