← Craft Fair Packing Checklist
The float question gets asked before every first fair and answered with folklore. Here's the arithmetic version: your float exists to break the notes cash buyers hand you, and cash buyers hand you £10s and £20s. Work back from your prices and the answer builds itself.
Price everything at .00 and .50 endings (you should anyway — fair maths in your head beats fair maths on a calculator) and change-making needs only £5 notes, £1 coins and 50ps. A £20 note for a £7.50 item needs £12.50 back: one £10 (from earlier takings or float), a £1, another £1, a 50p. No coppers, no 20ps, no weighing down the tin.
| Denomination | Count | Value |
|---|---|---|
| £10 notes | 2 | £20 |
| £5 notes | 6 | £30 |
| £1 coins | 15 | £15 |
| 50p coins | 10 | £5 |
That breaks the first several £20 notes of the day comfortably; after that, your own takings become the float. Sellers with sub-£5 price points should shift £10 of it into more £1 coins; sellers whose cheapest item is £15+ can halve the coins entirely.
Count it before you leave (write the number down — the checklist has a slot for a tally sheet), keep it separate in your head from takings, and count everything again before packing up: takings minus float equals actual cash sales, which is the number your break-even maths wants. And even at mostly-card fairs, keep a £40-ish minimum float — the day the card signal dies is the day the cash buyers appear, and they hunt in packs.
General guidance, August 2026. Not financial advice. CAAC.