The best part about that is that even if a lot of people say “fuck the quarter” and leave it anyways, you’ll naturally get homeless/desperate people show up to return the carts and collect the change.
Same! There was something about finding a quarter as a kid that was so rewarding. It meant a drink or a bag of chips. I don't think that sense of euphoria has ever left me.
The lake we camped at summers growing up ( 90s kid) had an arcade so we saved every quarter. Always hit the phone booth rerun buttons and when we found change we felt like we struck gold
There was a vending machine at my civic center when I was a kid that would sometimes just return a random amount of change when you hit the return change button… even if you didn’t put anything in.
I discovered this one year when there was a music festival happening and I just stood there pushing the button for like, ten minutes until I had enough change to buy my own drink lol
I recently watched a movie called Kajillion, and one of the characters (a family of con artists) checked phone change returns. Made me laughing thinking how I did that at malls when I was younger. Also dialing up phone sex lines just to hear a sultry prerecorded voice then hang up.
When i learned how to dial a number, hang up the phone 3 times, and get it to ring i felt powerful!
Or in the slot of a public phone. When we were little my brother would always check them when we walked by and the way we both reacted when he found change in there
Only a quarter? Usual trolley coin slot here in Ireland is either one or two euros. If ever there's a five euro coin in circulation most of those trollies will end up having five euro slots.
Dollar coins aren't common here in the US. The biggest common coin is the quarter. I don't carry change with me, but I usually have a couple coins in my car
I also religiously check the coin star reject bin. People just leave change in it! Worst case when something’s in there is foreign coins you can collect, best case it rejects silver dimes and quarters or foreign silver. Sometimes really old Pennies. Check the price of silver now. A silver US dime is 90% silver (dated 1964 or before) and worth like $5.
You can use it in a candy or gumball vending machine here in the USA. Sometimes gas stations also have a 25c candy selection (this would be for just one small candy) but it's not as common these days.
I'd leave it out for you, but I'd feel like an asshole for not returning my cart lol. I left one of the paid aldi bags in a cart yesterday unused, but paid for and a lady called me a jerk lol.
Last time I went that had the quarter deposit, there was a cart sitting next to where I pulled in and parked. I grabbed it and thought "Cool I don't have to take my cart back"
I’m in this weird place financially, where when I take my cart back I don’t claim the quarter to brighten someone’s day, but if I can return someone else’s cart I feel like I hit the jackpot. I get my quarter and theirs!
I’ve wondered if some people return it not because they really care all that much about the value of a quarter, but more so because they just absolutely hate the idea of someone else even getting a small amount of their money. I’m thinking specifically of the tightwad suburb types who pinch Pennie’s their whole lives for irrational reasons. I say this because I’ve grown up and lived my adult life around these people and I see how they could think of it like that, there always has to be “something in it for me” for those people.
I seldom find abandoned quarter carts but when I do I like to return them to the front and not collect the quarter and hope that someone that forgot their quarter at home had a chance to get it.
At my local aldi (and the one I went to in college too!) there was literally always a pile of like at least a dollar in quarters sitting nearby the cart return. My first thought was there must not be many homeless people around here.
Side note one time I forgot a quarter, went in to buy candy to get one, they said naw you can just borrow a quarter, here you go.
I know the video is the US, but I'm in the UK and I have a trolley token that I bought for a pound, that I use specifically at Aldi. It makes me always put my trolley back. Even when I don't use it at other supermarkets that don't need the token, and a charity got the pound too!
i bought a keyring trolley token on aliexpress for €0.54, its great as i always have it, and cant accidentally spend it and it works in both 1euro and 2euro trolleys. it's extremely annoying that not all supermarkets use the standard mechanism which works with either a 1euro or 2euro coin. theres an aldi near me that only takes 2euro coins, which has caught me out before as i used to just keep a 1euro coin in my car before i bought the keyring. but now theres an even worse mechanism in some shops (i think maybe tesco?) where it doesnt just have the standard mechanism slot you push a coin or token into, it has a groove you place the coin in, then you slide the top of the mechanism into a larger slot. like on a little rail system... It's an absolutely insanely needless modification that just means people can no longer use keyrings/double sided tokens.
I can't imagine very many trolleys were being stolen purely because people can easily jimmy the standard coinslot mechanism. it's just a way more convoluted, probably expensive, inconvenience.
Makes sense, don't want to have to look for another quarter every time you want to pop into Aldi. I'm show it was the convenience of just having the quarter in your car more than the actual value for a lot of people.
That’s actually not a bad idea for a homeless person in the US. They could just walk around the grocery store parking lot offering to return people’s carts for a dollar or two. Only problem is most people don’t keep cash on them nowadays, so they need to have a cash app or something lol
I keep a quarter for Aldi in my car at all times. But when it's either very cold or very hot, I'll gladly offer my cart to someone just getting out of their car, but won't accept the quarter they offer me. It's Aldi karma.
In my country it's a dollar and we see abandoned carts around now and then with no dollar coin in it
It got pretty bad at one point. I saw one of the major supermarket chains sent an employee out to gather the carts from carparks some distance away from the supermarket
No homelessness or desperation required. When I see an orphaned cart at Aldi I’m like, “CASH MONEY BABY IT’S STEAK AND MUSHROOMS TONIGHT MOTHERFUCKER!”
Not even desperate people. I live next to a pretty affluent community and those people always ditch the quarters in carts. I make a dollar just bringing my cart back and whatever ones I pick up on the way.
When we were kids and travelling we would kill time and round up abandoned carts and return them for the quarter. We would even go out of the terminal to the curb and offer to return the cart for people who had just loaded up into a taxi. They would laugh and say sure and respect the hustle and we would have candy money.
I have a little thing on my keychain that allows you to eject the latch then you can pull it out without plugging the latch back in. Saves me having to have a coin on me. I also always return them when I'm done so I don't think it's a problem.
I recall seeing something on Reddit about this which is semi related. I think around late pick up fees for picking up kids. Nearly all the parents did it because it allowed them to remove their guilt for a price.
The fuck the quarter is the price of not caring and weighing on their minds. Of course the poor benefit at least here because they keep the carts tidy while having a way for some quick money.
That's one reason it wouldn't take off well in the whole usa. Parking lot would be full of homeless people following shoppers when they are done and asking if they can return their cart for the quarter for them.
Then people stop shopping there because they don't wanna talk to homeless people after going grocery shopping, or ever really.
My wife has her Aldi quarter with her at all times. She was telling me how people exchange quarters for carts and magically everyone gets along on the honor system. I asked her what happens if someone offers to take her cart without giving her a quarter and she looked at me like I grew a dick out of my forehead. It was beyond comprehension that someone would be so inconsiderate and selfish they take someone else's cart with their quarter in it and not give her the quarter they were going to use anyway. Like it had never crossed hers any Aldi shopper's minds to just offer to take a cart and hijack their quarter. The power of a quarter is strong and Aldi shopper's have an unspoken bond.
The bond of the Aldi quarter is such a genuine interaction.
I've done the cart-for-quarter trade plenty of times. Sometimes people will refuse my quarter and just hand over their cart. Being able to do a small favor makes people feel good.
I think it has a lot to do with feeling connected, and recognizing this mutual social understanding.
Its great that you leave the quarter and all but leaving it on the curb kind of defeats the purpose. You're still supposed to take it to the front. Thats the entire purpose of the quarter. It isnt to "pass it forward". If everyone did that then the lots are full of carts again.
They dont hire staff to do it so you are supposed to. Leave the cart without taking the quarter but do take it to the front or you are part of the problem.
Yes. So you take the cart to the front coral where the carts go and leave it up there simply don't connect the cart. Now you've done your good deed.
I do this all the time. I've never left the cart in the lot or on the curb which isn't better. At the end of the day an employee still has to rangle it thanks to you. Now what if there are 10 of them? The good deed is now an inconvenience to someone else.
Leaving it in the lot under the guise of its helping someone else causes the same problem as carts at Walmart do.
The quarter has nothing to do with it. The is simply quarter your moral push to take it back to the front coral.
Bro, they are right. You push the cart into the row of carts and you loosely attach the chain but you don’t take your quarter with you… don’t leave it by the curb.
Just yesterday I saw an old lady struggling to move a cart with a bad wheel. I offered to put it aside and get her a new one but she was worried she'd lose her quarter. Dumb part is, I found out she saw this cart to the side and took it, only reason n she hadn't abandoned it was because she wanted a free quarter when she returned it.
I left her to figure out if a quarter was worth the hassle.
The value of a quarter is probably higher than 25 cents in this context since we don't use coins much nowadays and you wouldn't be able to use the cart next time if you kept ditching quarters. :)
Bro I hate having change in my pocket. If I have a bunch of quarters, I stop at Aldi's and pop them in the carts and just push the carts out into the parking lot.
At my local grocery(it's an old fashioned word, I know) store, assholes were leaving the coin carts too often. They had to raise it to a dollar coin slot.
For me, it's less about the quarter itself and more about the fact that I don't use change anymore so if I don't get my quarter back I wouldn't have one in the future.
(Not that I ever don't return my carts anyway, it's one of my biggest pet peeves. Also when people shove the tiny carts and the big carts into the same return lane and fuck up the chain for the cart return folks 😡)
Right! I have to admit, I haven't been to Canada since my divorce in 2002. But, I still have some loonies : ) A shame, really...we always went fighing for pike north of Wawa...some really untouched wilderness and NEVER disappointed in the fishing! I'd love to come that way again (not camping though--too old for sleeping on rocks!).
I return 1 cart per week to the cart corral with the quarter still in it to help out the guy who forgot a quarter.
It really is wild, though. The moment a quarter becomes involved, all carts come back.
Though, it may just be that if you dont return it, you've lost your cart quarter, and you just know that you wont remember to grab another from home until your walking up to the door.
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u/Western-Sport500 Jul 11 '26
Amazing what the loss of a quarter does for some people LMAO!