With all the wear and tear that those bills go through, it’s surprising that they stay together as long as they do. You can only stuff them all wrinkled-up into your pockets so many times before they just give up. The Fed knows that we aren’t too careful with its bills and so they routinely collect them from banks for “processing” – shredding and disposal. The Fed also ensures that new money makes it back into circulation to replace the worn out stuff. It makes sense because you wouldn’t want your money constantly falling apart on you.

Since the Fed keeps track of all the worn-out money it’s disposing of, the average life span of dollar bills is easy for them to figure out. According to federalreserve.gov, this is the life expectancy for each type of bill:

• $1 – 21 months
• $5 – 16 months
• $10 – 18 months
• $20 – 24 months
• $50 – 55 months
• $100 – 89 months

The list above makes sense: the more used a bill is, the more worn-out it gets.