Is 'Money' Discrete or Continuous data?

On my homework revision exam paper for maths, it has the question:

"Is money discrete or continuous data?" And includes the two tick boxes. I also have to explain the reason for my answer. I've searched the internet and most sites say 'both' but I can only tick one box. I usually find this sort of question easy but if you think about it it's kind of both, although it can't. Help!


It is discrete, because if you take any currency for example Euros, we have 5 Euros, 4 euros or it can be further broken down into 4 euros and 56 cents. (i.e 4.56) but we can not go beyond it.

A continous data is one where we have no break. it should include all the rational or irrational numbers between two given numbers. And hence money is not a continuous data.


I would say it could be both aswell but to me it would be discrete more. This is because continuous would be ongoing digits such as 5,3982 whereas money could only have 2 decimal places such as ￡5.32 it would never be ￡5.323. However it would be discrete in the sense that it could be just 10p or 20p and this is not continuous. Hope this helped x


A good question. In calculating money problems it is continuous because you can have an endless number of decimals: 3 items cost $1.00, so one costs $0.3333333333333333333333333333333333...…

But if the question refers to money as currency, then it is discrete, because the smallest denomination we have (in the US) is a penny. So we would pay for one item with $0.33

Maybe that's why most sites say both.

I would say "money" is continuous and "currency" is discrete.