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It's always exciting when you're at a store and the cashier hands you a super unique, or old, bill or coin. However, according to the Bank of Canada, this may not happen as often anymore.

The Bank of Canada recently announced that the Government of Canada now has the ability to remove legal tender status from bank notes.

"Bank notes issued by the Bank of Canada, together with coins issued by the Royal Canadian Mint, are what is known as legal tender," reads the Bank of Canada website. "That's a technical term meaning the Government of Canada has deemed them to be the official money we use in our country. In legal terms, it means 'the money approved in a country for paying debts.'"

And according to the Bank of Canada, removing legal tender status is something that the government was not able to do before.

However, the federal government recently decided to remove the legal tender status from the following Canadians bills, which are no longer being printed: the $1, $2, $25, $500 and $1,000 bill.

"Essentially, this means that Canadians will no longer be able to use them in transactions," reads a recent Bank of Canada press release.

This status change will come into effect on Jan. 1, 2021.

However, the Bank of Canada has noted that most Canadians will not be impacted by this change since the bills have not been produced in decades, and are rarely used in transactions.

Although, the Bank of Canada also highlighted that the bills will not lose their value.

"Canadians can redeem them at face value or decide to keep them," reads the release. "Those who wish to redeem their bank notes can do so most easily at their financial institution. They can also send bank notes directly to the Bank of Canada."

The Bank of Canada says that the government has indicated there are currently no other plans to remove legal tender status from any other bank notes.

For more information click here or here.