it's nothing to do with poverty.
If you're in poverty, you don't accumulate £50-worth of change, you spend it bit by bit because you don't have the option of just handing over a note.

The 7% is a tax on not having to be arsed bagging up all your change in the correct amount/denominations to hand it over at the bank no more than five bags at a time, not having to feel embarrassed holding up a queue while you count out shrapnel at the shops, and the convenience of being able to take the big bag of change to the supermarket (where you would go anyway) in order to change it into a store voucher (for a store where you would be shopping anyway).
( Batsgirl, Sat 9 May 2009, 12:32, archived)