How do you save your change, or do you save it at all? I like to save all my pocket change and let it build up for a couple years at a time. Then I count it up to see how much I’ve accumulated and then I’ll roll it up and cash it in at the bank. With my big windfall I go out and buy something I’ve been wanting, or sometimes I just put it into a savings account.
So what do you do with your spare coins you’ve saved up? Do you hand roll it or dump it into the nearest Coinstar machine? Do you just save a jar or two’s worthat a time or do you let it all collect in one big container? Or do you just ilke to get rid of it as soon as you can? What do you do with it once you’ve decided to cash it all in?
I have a large glass bottle on my dresser I dump it all into. When it fills, I sort it into other glass bottles by denomination, though I’ll probably stop that now that I’ve learned my bank will sort them for me. After enough collects (“enough” being how ever much it takes before I start feeling antsy and need some extra spending money, usually anywhere from $50 to $100), I’ll take it to the bank for conversion to currency, and then go spend it.
Spare change in the car stays in the car for use at drive-thrus.
We designated a large Twinings Tea tin as the change depository. When it gets about half full, and quite heavy, we take it to the bank and pour the coins into the machine. The last time we got our change, uh, changed, it came up to $142 something. Then we topped off the gas tank & headed to Best Buy.
I have one plastic cup for quarters, dimes, and nickels and one for pennies.
I use the “silver” change everyday so it rarely has anything in it. When the penny cup fills up, I dump it into a 1 gallon plastic tub. When that fills up, it’s off to a Coinstar machine. It’ll be worth 9¢ on the dollar not to have to wrap those copper bastards.
I have a metal money box, into which I put all 5 and ten cent pieces. Even small denomination coins add up to a substantial amount eventually. Then I just take it to the bank and their big ole machine counts it for me and I make a deposit into the A/c.
We have this extremely large, ugly vase that my father gave us. That’s where all the pennies, nickels, and dimes go (we spend the quarters). Before vacation, we’ll cash it in at a place that has a coin machine that takes 10% that goes toward a local charity. I just found out that my bank now has a machine that doesn’t take any cut at all, but I’m thinking we’ll stick with the charitable one (it seems weird to switch now). We usually net about $75, which we spend on something silly on vacation.
As it happens, we didn’t have time to take the change in before last year’s summer vacation, so we’re looking forward to a big cash cow this year! I might have to make two trips, the last time I tried to dust around the vase I could barely move it.
Stop that. If you live anywhere in the northeast near a Commerce Bank (or other accomodating institution), you can use their coin counter even if you’re not a customer.
I noticed there are now signs all over my local grocery store, even next to the Coinstar machine, informing us that no account is necessary to use the in-store bank’s change service for free. So you can take your change to the counter over there, hand it to the nice lady and get folding money back free, or dump it yourself into this other machine and pay 8% and get a reciept and go stand in line and cash in.
People still use the Coinstar, people amaze me.
I spend my silver change in the coffee machines at work, and every once in a while I’ll foist off 20-30 pennies on an unsuspecting cashier.
I recently got rid of the old tootsie roll bank I dropped all my change into every night and started throwing it into a quart mason jar. With that change, I started putting the pennies into something different and they go to my nephew’s piggy bank now. The tootsie roll bank took about a month to fill (and I just automatically took it to the bank and deposited it every time) and I’m wondering how long it’ll take the mason jar to get filled with silver stuff. I’m estimating two months. People leave change as a tip all the time, so I think that’ll probably be accurate.
That’s what I put my change in, too. Specifically a 200g Earl Grey tin. I usually pick through it at the tail end of the pay period for quarters and dimes. Sometimes nickels, but things haven’t been that desperate in a while.
Pennies go in a cheap schooner I won at a county fair. Nickels and dimes go into a glass mug I won at a homebrewing contest. Quarters go into a USC mug. Spare bills and the wife’s change go into a plastic football. When they get full-ish, they get wrapped and bagged and taken to the bank. We usually turn in $200 or so at a time, deposited into the vacation fund.
We’ve got a piggy bank for each of the boys. All change gets divided up evenly. On their birthdays, we open 'em up, roll the coins, and deposit the money into their 524 (college savings) plan. So far, we’ve been getting c. $300/year for each kid.
At the end of the day all the money in my pocket goes into a basket on my dresser. The next day the bills go back in my pocket, but the change just collects until it’s overflowing–then I roll it and go exchange it at the bank.
**How do you save your change, or do you save it at all? **
In bottles, many bottles, in different rooms, at home, at the office. I do have different bottles for different coins. One of these days, I gotta rolled all that money up and take it to the bank. None of the banks where I do business have one of those coin machines. I’ve already gotten the wrappers from the bank, but haven’t done the hard work yet. OTOH, there’s always this nagging notion that one of the jillion coins in one of the bottles is worth a lot more than its face value. Maybe that’s why I’m procrastinating!
Nary a Coomerce Bank in sight here. I didn’t think about asking my bank. There’s a branch in the store where the Coinstar machine is. Perhaps I’ll ask.
I empty my pockets each evening and put all of the change into a vase that sits on the floor of my closet.
About 6 months ago I read about a man that had saved something like $100,000 worth of pennies and was keeping them in 5 gallon buckets in his garage. How he plans on moving them (they must weigh a ton) and cashing them in is beyond me.
“Yes, Mr. Bank Teller, I need some penny wrappers please. A lot of penny wrappers.”
