Australia, you’ve lost nearly $8 billion in bank notes

We’ve lost a lot of money. Image: Getty

Empty out your old purses and the pockets of your jeans, Australia. You could find $7.6 billion in cash.

Australia has $76 billion in banknotes currently in circulation and according to new research from the Reserve Bank of Australia, we’ve misplaced between 5 and 10 per cent of that.

These bank notes are considered destroyed, forgotten, sitting in collections or just lost. The RBA came to this figure by using an annual banknote loss rate. They came up with this original figure when paper banknotes were replaced with polymer notes; the notes that weren’t returned for switching out were lost.

What money are we losing?

Unsurprisingly, we’re more likely to lose banknotes of lower value, like $5 and $10 notes. And as they decrease in value, we’re increasingly likely to lose them.

“This makes sense: people are likely to show greater care towards banknotes of greater value,” the RBA said.

However, for the $50 and $100 banknotes, this trend reverses.

The researchers put this down to previous hoarding of these denominations. They explained some banknotes that were hoarded earlier are either in known-about hoards of money, or have otherwise been lost.

How much money have I lost?

With $4-$8 billion lost, destroyed, collectors items or forgotten about, the average person has lost between $170 and $340 in cash.

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