Kroger's New Checkout Policy: Why It's an Insult to Every Shopper

So I’m standing at a Kroger self-checkout, a place I already despise because it turns me into an unpaid employee, and I see this little sign taped to the screen. "The U.S. Treasury has stopped production of pennies," it says, all official-like. Then it asks me to "consider providing exact change."

Let me translate that for you. "Hey, customer. This worthless piece of metal you've been forced to carry around for a century is now our problem, and we'd really appreciate it if you'd solve it for us."

Give me a break.

The slow, agonizing death of the penny isn't a surprise. We’ve known this was coming. The government finally admitted what we all knew: it costs almost four cents to make a one-cent coin. A single penny. That’s not just a bad business model; it’s a level of fiscal stupidity that only a government could achieve and sustain for decades. They lost $85.3 million on it in one year. Offcourse, ending it will save them a cool $56 million annually. Good for them.

But let's be real. This isn't some bold, innovative move. Canada, Australia, New Zealand—they all ditched their one-cent coins years ago. We're just the last guy to show up to the party, wearing yesterday's clothes and wondering why the music stopped. And now that we're finally here, the corporations are already figuring out how to make us pay for the inconvenience.

Welcome to the 'Rounding Tax' Era

This is where it gets interesting. Or, if you’re a regular person who buys things, infuriating. The death of the penny creates a mathematical black hole for every cash transaction that doesn't end in a .05 or .00. So what happens in that gap?

Well, that depends on where you shop.

Kwik Trip, bless their hearts, says they’ll automatically round all cash purchases down to the nearest nickel. They’re literally eating the difference. A few Love’s Travel Stops are rounding up in the customer’s favor. These are the good guys. They’re basically admitting the system is dumb and they won’t make you pay for it.

Then you have the others. Sheetz is encouraging cashless payments or asking you to round up your bill for charity, which is a whole other can of worms. It’s corporate altruism as a service—making you feel good about giving them your digital pocket change. Kroger, with its passive-aggressive little sign, is just hoping you’ll solve the problem yourself. According to one report, Kroger issues new checkout policy which will make it harder to pay for groceries. This is a bad idea. No, 'bad' doesn't cover it—this is a five-alarm dumpster fire of corporate ambiguity.

Because what happens when a company decides, quietly, to just round everything up to the nearest nickel? The Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond—people who actually think about this stuff—warned this could create a "rounding tax." A silent, invisible surcharge that could skim an estimated $6 million a year out of consumers' pockets nationwide.

It's the perfect corporate grift. It’s not a fee. It’s not a price hike. It’s just… the way the math works now. It’s like a digital parasite, latching onto millions of transactions a day and siphoning off a few cents here, a few cents there. It's not a stick-up; it's a slow financial bleed-out. And who, exactly, is going to be watching the watchers? When every 7-Eleven becomes its own tiny central bank, who's making sure that "rounding" isn't just a euphemism for "skimming"?

They tell us this is all for our convenience, to streamline the process, but we all know what it's really about...

It's about the bottom line. It always is. They're phasing out the penny, but they're also getting rid of the nickel, which costs a staggering 13.8 cents to produce. What happens then? Will we be rounding to the nearest dime? The nearest quarter? At what point does the rounding tax become more than just a rounding error in our bank accounts?

Then again, maybe I'm the crazy one here. Maybe I should just be grateful they're not asking me to stock the shelves on my way out.

Just Another Way to Get Screwed

Look, I don't care about the penny. I hate the penny. It's a useless copper-plated zinc turd that clogs up my pockets and serves no purpose. But I do care about the principle. This whole transition ain't about getting rid of a coin. It’s a Trojan horse. The government gets to pat itself on the back for saving $56 million, while corporations get a brand-new, officially sanctioned way to nickel-and-dime every single person who still uses cash. It’s a system upgrade where the consumer pays for the convenience of the retailer. Don’t insult my intelligence by telling me this is progress. It’s just the same old story, with shinier, more rounded numbers.