This afternoon I took a few minutes to go on a change hunt. Assembling only nickels, dimes, quarters, loonies ($1 Canadian) and toonies ($2 Canadian) and ignoring pennies, I assembled an entire coffee can of change. I cleaned out drawers, cleared off the tops of appliances, consolidated change stashes, emptied the center console in the car, searched floors, emptied pockets. It’s a hundred and fifty bucks at least.
A few years back we did a change hunt and came up with $300, which I thought was a staggering amount.
We’re terrible about change. It’s everywhere. I’m certain I’ve missed a lot. How much is kicking around your house, do you think?
We do the same thing! It collects in baskets and coffee cans and in piles at the base of monitors; every couple of years I break out the coin sorter and it’s like a little windfall, around $250-$350. Right now it’s gone a little bit meta, because in addition to a couple of baskets collecting change, I have another basket full of paper rolls of nickels, dimes and quarters from last time we did the sweep, which I haven’t bothered taking in to the bank yet. I did grab a couple rolls of quarters and stuff them in the car’s glove box for parking meters, though.
None. Oh, I suppose there might be a couple of coins in the cushions of the recliner, but probably not more than a few cents. Both the missus and I carry whatever change we have with us, and then spend it on things like coffee. I used to keep a 2-liter soda bottle and fill it with change. I just got sick of dealing with cashing it in. I make enough little purchases in cash that I rarely have more than a dollar in coins in my pocket.
::checks::
I have $1.55 now. I’ll buy a coffee tomorrow morning and be back down to 0.
Not that much, wow. Probably $50 or so, tops. I keep a change jar for the kids’ math lessons, and during the summer I let them make as many rolls as they can from it. Then we do something nice with that, and save the rest for the next school year.
LOL… this has to be at least partially a “guy” thing to go through. I’m guessing that you’re typical in having a man’s slim wallet with no change purse on the side, as with women’s full-size wallets, right? Having that coin purse always there makes it easier to actually spend some coins on occasion, instead of having them accumulate in pockets and make it all the way home (and often, I bet, to the laundry room).
I keep a brass tealight candleholder* on a bookshelf in the foyer and that’s where my excess coinage (like a handful of quarters from the laundromat) ends up… but I take pains to periodically transfer some of the loose change to my wallet, and then, to spend it, so it doesn’t get out of hand. But I doubt I’d be doing the equivalent transfer (of coins to pants pocket) if I was using a man’s slim wallet. For one thing, I don’t like having coins in my pockets.
The classic man’s alternative container being, of course, a double-shot glass of your choice. Much more stylish and tidy than just having a growing puddle of change sitting on a tabletop or similar surface…
Ours change container is filled to the brim and I think it’s a 3 or 4 gallon bucket. Not sure how much of that is “silver”, but I’m guessing it’s a couple hunnert bucks, all told.
We keep a big jar that the pennies, nickels and dimes go into, we spend the quarters in vending/newspaper machines. My wife just cashed in $140 US dollars in change.
The last time I was in Canada it seemed like I wound up carrying a lot of change if I didn’t remember to use it. The one dollar and two dollar coins are a great idea. I don’t recall if there was a Canadian $1 paper bill. But it seemed like if I broke a $5 all I got was change in return.
Here in the US there have been several attempts to get people to use dollar coins but have met with little success. I think it is partially due to the continued printing of $1 paper bills and also poor marketing of the coins by the US mint. They are looked upon as an item to collect rather than to be used. I hardly ever see them in circulation.
There was a coin to honor Susan B. Anthony but it was too similar in size to the quarter and was the same color. Then came the Sacagawea bronze colored dollar coin. And now we have gold colored coins honoring the presidents. They have been out for a year or so and I have never seen one yet. Coins last so much longer than paper (actually cotton) money, but they will need to stop with the paper $1 before people will use them.
And the mint does not put the coins into circulation in the numbers needed to overwhelm the collectors and get the coins into daily us. There is no reason to collect these coins but the mint limits the introduction into daily use and I think there is a resistance from the banking industry against having to deal with so many coins.
We have a terribly ugly earthenware vase in which we put all pennies, nickels, and dimes. (Quarters are for the laundry).
When it is full, it is about $95. It’s funny to me how accurate that is … if it’s full to the top, it comes out to about $95. I always think we’ll see that drop if we get a run of pennies or some such. It’s about 3/4 full right now.
Usually what we do is cash it out before we go on vacation, and use it as extra walking around money.
We used to have a lot, hundreds of dollars worth. When it used to accumulate, every so often I would pick it all up, and take it down to the mall. One charity had a special kind of collection bin where you dropped a coin through a slot at the top of a funnel, and it would roll on its side, around and around the funnel till it finally fell to the bottom. I would feed the coins in as fast as I could to see them weaving their way down like a river of silver. It made a huge racket and all the kids passing by would stop to watch. It as fun.
Lately I put it in my kids’ lunch orders, since they need exact change, so we don’t get to do that any more.
Americans are at a disadvantage, I suppose, with our largest coin being 25 cents. But it wouldn’t matter to me, because I never hoard change. Cashiers hate me, because I’m one of those people who pay off $4.18 with five dollars and a quarter.
Or maybe they like me, because they don’t have to make as much change. Whatever. Either way, I’m not going to stop. I hate having a boatload of change. You either have to make a special trip to the bank or get ripped off at a machine.
I use change if I’m out and about and have some in my pocket. But if I get home with some change it either goes in the change tray on my counter, or in my car.
Usually I have about $50-60 by the end of the year. I take it all to the CoinStar and trade it in for an Amazon gift card (no fees) then use that to buy Christmas gifts.
As it happens, I decided to make my twice-a-decade trip down to the Coinstar machine a couple days ago. I filled five small Tupperware things full of coinage. I now possess an Amazon gift certificate for $411.05. (No Coinstar fee that way.)
Easily more than a grand. I have a 3-foot high plastic soda bottle nearly full with change. Once it is filled I was planning on posting a pic and seeing if anyone could guess how much is in it.
Hmm no 15% cut for Coinstar if you go the Amazon route? I’ll have to lasso up all the spare coins laying around ($50 I’d guess) and haul it over to Publix if that’s the case.