When most people make an expensive purchase, like a new phone, they pay with a card, but would you ever consider paying with cash?

In this story, one person encounters a customer who makes a surprisingly large purchase with $5 bills.

Let’s see how the story plays out.

“Is it cool if I pay in $5 bills?”

This happened over a year ago but it’ll always be a story I’ll remember – nothing too crazy but definitely something out of the ordinary.

I work at a fruit stand that sells products that usually cost at or above $1k.

I asked this man and his girlfriend what they needed help with that day, and they said they wanted two unlocked fruitPhone seven pluses, which cost after tax, well over $2k.

I said sure thing, brought the two phones out, and this is how it turned out:

That is a lot of cash!

Customer (Cx): “is it cool if I pay in five dollar bills?”

Me, thinking he’s joking: “yeah sure thing”

Cx: “ok cool”

At this point Cx asks his girlfriend to open the backpack she’s wearing and pulls out about 20 stacks of $5 bills

It took a long time to count.

Cx: “Do you guys have like a cash counting machine or something?”

Me: “technically yeah but for this I have to count everything manually… and I’m gonna need a manager for this, this might take a while”

Cx: “yeah sure no prob”

Literally ten minutes later me and my manager are done counting, double counting, and triple counting the cash, and then I send the customer and his girlfriend on their way.

The entire time I was on closing duties that evening, me and my manager were talking about what he did for a living and how someone could carry literally thousands of dollars in five dollar bills around.

Paying in $5 bills is certainly interesting. At least they didn’t pay in pennies.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

This is such a sweet thing to do!

That’s a lot of cash!

Here’s a good guess at why they had so many $5 bills.

This could be another reason for the $5 bills.

Someone who worked at the same store had another customer pay cash.

Paying in cash can be really inconvenient.

If you liked that story, check out this post about a group of employees who got together and why working from home was a good financial decision.