One thing you seem to be able to count on with the internet… nothing ever goes away. Stories and articles have a way of coming back around. Some make a bit of a stir, fade away, and come back again a few years later.
Just the other day I noticed an article posted by a friend. It was about how the $1000 bill was being phased out. My immediate thought was, what am I going to do with that stack of thousands I have hidden, making myself chuckle at the thought I would actually have a spare anything hidden. And what about my grandmother’s mattress? How will she ever sleep at night if we have to take all the stuffing out of her mattress and turn it in? All my $1000 bills will be… worthless!
Turns out, there’s no worries. You can still turn all bills that have been phased out in to a bank for exchange at face value. But there will be a point where you can’t use them as legal tender to pay for regular items. So using a $1000 bill to pay the pizza delivery person probably isn’t going to work, but you can still get your money.
I did a little digging, and the story my friend had posted was interesting. The $1000 bill was taken from circulation in 2000. As of 2012, there was still over a billion dollars worth of them floating around. In 2018, when the government introduced legislation to stop their use as legal tender, there was still over $700,000.00 worth of $1000 bills around the country.
There were other bills that were being done away with. The $500 bill, which I don’t think I have ever seen. (I have seen a few $1000 bills used.) We even had a $25 bill in 1935 which were still able to be used. And of course all the $1 and $2 bills.
But getting back to my point, it really is sort of interesting how these things come back around. So when you see something online, best check the dates carefully. It’s not always easy to tell how long they’ve been making the rounds. A good story really is timeless on the internet.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a mattress to unpack. Gotta get all those $1000 bills to the bank before they expire.
