Down for the Count

Let's imagine for the moment that you have a loose stack of bills in your hand, and you're asked to count them. How do you do it? How do you flip through the bills? Show me.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Assuming that I even have any cash - In Japan, I would quickly proceed to artfully fan out the bills perfectly even...then grasp the stack with my left hand with 3 of my middle fingers behind the stack as a means to slightly bend the bills...then I would proceed with my thumb and middle finger of my right hand to snap the bills one by one thereby producing the perfect counting method.
In North America, I would have to unwrinkle each bill...make a haphazard stack in my hands and transfer each bill one by one to some surface. This would be followed immediately by drenching my hands in Purell or some other sanitizing agent.
JON

Anonymous said...

I take all my bills, straighten them out, make sure that they're all facing the same direction, and then sort them by denomination. The $1's are on the bottom, followed by the $5's, etc. (that's so when the money is folded in my money clip, it looks like I only have $1's). Then, I proceed to count. Then, I fold them up and put them in the money clip.

Ben said...

I'm so glad you guys posted, because now I know I'm not the only anal one. Behold.

The setup. I take all my bills and organize them in the same direction and sort by denomination too: small bills on top, larger bills behind. I flip the pile over, so that larger bills are on top (now face-down). Then the denomination numbers are on the top half of the face-up side. (This varies from currency to currency, of course.)

The grip. On my right hand, I point with my index and pinky fingers, while the middle and ring fingers are bent; thumb doesn't matter yet. I don't know if you can picture it, but it's kind of like that hand symbol that people hold up to represent anarchy or rock and roll or something. Anyway, the bills go into that grip, with my thumb on top of the pile now, kind of weaving between the fingers (so the index finger actually kind of making the bills want to flop forward (towards you). All of your fingers should be in the bottom 60% of the bill.

The counting. With my right thumb, I flip each bill down, and the left thumb & forefinger "snaps" (to make sure it's one bill only) and kind of moves it down out of the way.

Notes. You need to have your fingers on the bottom 60% of the bill so that in case it's a cash pile you're being paid with, and you couldn't sort them into the same direction, you can be sure they didn't try to fold a bill over and then inadvertently count it twice. Having the bills go larger to smaller makes it easier to add in your head as you count.

Try it.

There's even another way that the lady who owns the scooter shop I go to, showed me. I haven't been able to master that one yet. If more of you answer, I'll post that too.

Kevin said...

Here's what I would do:

I would fan out the bills just a little by first straighening the pile, holding them vertically in my two hands clasping at the bottom right corner, then by bending the pile back and forth to make them fan near the top. The bills must fan such that each bill's top right corner is slightly opened to the right of the one in front of it.

Then, using the thumb of the right hand, I would count in groups of 5 bills at a time, starting from the back (pushing 5 bills with my right thumb, and holding them away from the to-be-counted between my right index and middle fingers).

I've seen this done quite efficiently at a bank.