What is the AVERAGE amount of change I carry in my pocket?

Question

I have always wondered this. I don't save my coins in a jar, instead I always spend my coins whenever possible. Let's assume that I buy items with random prices. Let's also disregard .50 pieces. I also will give the cashier 3 cents for something that cost $2.78 in order to get less coins back (if I didn't have 3 quarters at the time). I suppose other "rules" might have to be stated in order to calculate the average, but I don't know what rules to state. I simply try to keep the amount of change I have to a minimum. I also try to keep the number of coins transferred from myself or to myself to a minimum.

Answer 1

My gut feeling would be between 0 and 99 cents, or an average of 49½ cents. This would make for an interesting computer simulation... perhaps if I'm so inspired I'll try it out some time.

Answer 2

The answer will depend on one more variable...
If you are a United Statesian (some non-USers object to USers taking all three continents' names), then it doesn't matter, but...

If you are Canadian there are also loonies ($1 coins) and twonies ($2 coins).
In Australia there are $ coins and 2$ coins too. In this case, there is a possibility for larger average sums than in the US...
Other countries have coins for $5 too,...

I agree with bandf and jp, however, I believe that the mathematical mean doesn't actually apply because if you are truly actively attempting to prevent the exchance of coins, you would be likely to add extra items to change the total, thus skewing the results. Much more complex than a simple mean question. So, I am going to say arbitrarily 27 cents. Count it up several times a day for the next few weeks, and let us know what your true mean is. :)

Answer 3

"bandf" is correct. You will have anything from 0 cents to 99 cents for an average of 49.5 cents