First of all, congratulations on another excellent edition - as usual a good mix of subjects. I found the article on spending habits interesting and thought I would inject my own experience into the conversation.

In the past few years (here in Ireland), patrons using our ATMs have been forced to withdraw ONLY €50 notes on many occasions - a phenomenon which happens more often than not it seems these days. If you request a withdrawal of €80 the machine will take you through the entire process until it comes to time to dispense the notes. Then you get a message along the lines that the machine won't let you withdraw an amount that is not a multiple of €50. As a result, you end with only large bills in your wallet.

No doubt, many people do what I do - which is to get rid of the €50 note as soon as possible since many businesses won't accept them due to high rate of counterfeit notes in circulation. No longer are my spending habits dictated by my needs or vice versa... the need to have small bills often forces me to buy small items (newspapers, chewing gum, etc.) just to get smaller notes sooner rather than later.

I don't know if the same is true on your side of the world. However, the dispensing of only €50 notes is unquestionably a huge inconvenience for the bank's clients although no one ever seems to complain openly about it.