$1 Bill
Used $1 Bill – Adobe Images

Have you ever wondered where that $1 bill in your pocket has been? How many hands it has passed through until it finally gets to yours? How many years it has gone from person to person throughout it’s lifespan?

Once the dollar bill gets too worn, it gets destroyed out of circulation and the Federal Reserve prints more. The 2008 movie Mad Money actually plays around this fact. The Federal Reserve has documented the average lifespan of each of it’s paper bills from $1 to $100. You may assume the higher the dollar bill is, the less frequent it is passed hands, which means a longer lifespan. But you would be wrong. On Average, the $1 bill has a lifespan of 6.6 years! Let’s see the rest of them.

Dollar Bill Lifespans
Dollar Bill Lifespan – https://federalreserve.gov

Interestingly, the $5 and $10 bill has a shorter lifespan than the $1 bill. This simply means they are used more than the $1 bill. This makes sense if you think about it. We often pay with $5 or $10 bills, and receive change. Once you use enough $5/$10 bills, you may accumulate enough $1 bills in change to make the purchase instead. Until then, you have essentially used more $5/$10 bills than $1 bills overall!

$100 Bill
$100 Bill – Adobe Images

The Benjamin, being the highest dollar amount, is often kept for big purchases or to hold as a store of value until needed. Because of this they have almost four times the lifespan as the $1 bill!

Other Interesting Facts about Dollar Bills

  • Paper money isn’t made of paper, but rather 75% cotton and 25% linen.
  • Physical money only accounts for less than 10% of real circulating money supply, the rest is digital.
  • The average $1 bill is passed through hands around 720 times in its lifespan.
  • The Dollar bill hasn’t been back by gold since August 1971, it is only “legal Tender” now.
  • The $1 bill hasn’t changed appearance in almost 50 years.
  • Martha Washington and Pocahontas were the only females ever printed on American money.

Other Interesting Facts

Facts You May Not Know