Money in the United States exists in two forms: paper and coins. Paper money and coins come in different amounts, or denominations. Paper money comes in 1's, 5's, 10's, 20's, 50's, and 100's. These are all measured in dollars, which is shown by the dollar sign ($) you place in front of the numbers. Coins come in 1's, 5's, 10's, 25's, 50's, and 100's (or $1). Coins are measured in cents, which is shown by putting a cent sign, ¢, after the number. For example, if I had 25 cents, I would write 25¢. If I had 25 dollars, I would write $25.

There are 100 cents in every dollar. Therefore, 100¢ = $1. We would never write 100¢; by the time you reach 100, you need to express the amount in dollar form, with a dollar sign ($). Also, cents can be written two different ways. First, they can be written as a number followed by a cents sign, like this: 25¢. However, cents can also be written with a dollar sign ($) and a decimal point (.), like this: $0.25 The cents would come after the decimal, and a zero would come before the decimal, to let other people know that you only have cents and no whole dollars.

Paper money is often referred to as “a bill;” for example, $1 would be called a “one dollar bill,” $20 would be called “a 20 dollar bill” and so on. The amount is simply stated: I have $20 (20 dollars).

There are specific names for each of the coins used in the United States. They are as follows:

1¢ = penny	5¢ = nickel	10¢ = dime	25¢ = quarter

50¢ = half dollar	100¢ ($1) = golden dollar	100¢ ($1) = silver dollar

You should also be able to recognize paper money. It looks like this:

One dollar bill	Five dollar bill
Ten dollar bill	Twenty dollar bill
Fifty dollar bill	One hundred dollar bill

Counting Money

Counting money is a task performed daily by many people. There are a few good tips for counting money:

1. Count from highest to lowest.
2. Count bills first, then coins.
3. Count all of one denomination before moving on (ex: all the 100's, all the 50's, all the 20's, etc.).
4. When counting coins, stop when you get to a dollar and start over with new numbers— remembering that you already made it to a dollar once.
5. Knowing how to count by 5's, 10's, 20's, 25's, 50's, and 100's will help you greatly when it comes to counting money.

Now, you can practice counting money using these tips. Look at each picture below, and count the amount of money in it. Then, check your answer with our answer.

How much money is this?

You should have gotten $15.17, because there is one 10-dollar bill, one 5-dollar bill, one dime, one nickel, and two pennies.

Let’s try another one. How much money is this?

You should have gotten $82.66 because there is one 50-dollar bill, one 20-dollar bill, one 10-dollar bill, two 1-dollar bills, two quarters, one dime, one nickel, and one penny.

Now, let’s try one last example. How much money is this?

You should have gotten $58.76, because there are two 20-dollar bills, one 10-dollar bill, one 5-dollar bill, three 1-dollar bills, one 50-cent piece, two dimes, one nickel, and one penny.