# How much spare change do you estimate that you have in your house? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [December 15, 2011, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-spare-change-do-you-estimate-that-you-have-in-your-house/606331 "2011-12-15T19:59:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![not\_what\_you\_d\_expect](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/not_what_you_d_expect/32/3246_2.png) [@not\_what\_you\_d\_expect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/not_what_you_d_expect)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2011, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-spare-change-do-you-estimate-that-you-have-in-your-house/606331/21 "2011-12-15T21:38:11Z")
More than $10.00 less than $50.00. I’ll usually spend a rainy day wrapping coins about once a winter. I use my credit card for almost everything so I don’t get a lot of change these days. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2011, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-spare-change-do-you-estimate-that-you-have-in-your-house/606331/22 "2011-12-15T21:43:44Z")
The plastic football has probably between $100 and $200 in it, and will be cashed in this weekend. ---
**Author:** ![ZipperJJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zipperjj/32/211_2.png) [@ZipperJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZipperJJ)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2011, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-spare-change-do-you-estimate-that-you-have-in-your-house/606331/23 "2011-12-15T21:44:54Z")
> [@drewtwo99](#): > > I have a question that has always bothered me. Why do people use the coinstar when banks will sort your coins for free for you? No fee or having to chose a gift card… just good ol’ cash, put right into your account if you want it! > > Do some/most banks just not have these machines? AFAIK my credit union doesn’t have one. Last I tried, I still had to wrap coins and put my account number on them to cash them in. But this was many years ago. For the past 5 years or so I have taken my change to CoinStar every Christmas and exchanged for a no-fee Amazon gift card. Then I use that money towards Christmas gifts. This year I had $33, and oddly enough I usually have around $33 every year. The most I had I think was $58. Since I just did this exchange 2 weeks ago, I now have between $1 and $10, so that’s how I voted. ---
**Author:** ![boytyperanma](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4491bb/32.png) [@boytyperanma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/boytyperanma)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2011, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-spare-change-do-you-estimate-that-you-have-in-your-house/606331/24 "2011-12-15T21:48:08Z")
I keep a bowl near my door I empty my pockets into when I come home. All the lose change collects there for a while. Then it usually gets thrown into red solo cups that hang out till I decide to get rid of all my soda cans and change. My bank only has one office with a coin sorter I can use, it isn’t the most convenient office for me to go to so about 2 out of 3 times I use Coin Star. Each red solo cup works out to about 35 bucks. I turn in 2-3 at a time. ---
**Author:** ![Living\_Well\_Is\_Best\_Revenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/6bbea6/32.png) [@Living\_Well\_Is\_Best\_Revenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Living_Well_Is_Best_Revenge)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2011, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-spare-change-do-you-estimate-that-you-have-in-your-house/606331/25 "2011-12-15T21:49:15Z")
I cash my change bowl in at Coinstar once it fills up. This is about $40 each time. I fill it up pretty fast because I use cash quite a bit. ---
**Author:** ![SpoilerVirgin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/4491bb/32.png) [@SpoilerVirgin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SpoilerVirgin)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2011, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-spare-change-do-you-estimate-that-you-have-in-your-house/606331/26 "2011-12-15T21:55:04Z")
I have a coin sorting machine on the little shelf by my front door. All of my change goes in there, and when it gets to be about $100, I take it to the bank. It’s at about $75 right now. I am constrained by how much I can carry, so I need to take the coins in before they get too heavy for me to lift. ---
**Author:** ![Antigen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/848f3c/32.png) [@Antigen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Antigen)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2011, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-spare-change-do-you-estimate-that-you-have-in-your-house/606331/27 "2011-12-15T22:03:05Z")
Under $50, most likely, and most of it from my husband emptying his pockets into the change jar after work. I almost never use cash, so I accumulate change very slowly. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2011, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-spare-change-do-you-estimate-that-you-have-in-your-house/606331/28 "2011-12-15T22:10:34Z")
ETA: \<$50 I use debit for nearly everything, credit for nearly everything else, and only withdraw cash when I anticipate making a purchase which is possible with cash only. Usually, this means going to the bank to get dollar coins and quarters to feed the laundry machines at my apartment. Ninety-nine percent of my non-laundry “cash only” purchases are quarterly transactions which involve perfectly round dollar amounts. On the _very_ rare occasion that I receive coins as change the nickels and dimes either go into a jar at home or (more frequently) into a donation jar near the checkout, because having coins in your pocket is just annoying. Quarters and dollars go into the laundry pool. Pennies are usually discarded - if they don’t get left in the “leave a penny” jar, I like to leave them on the (long disused and overgrown) train tracks which run parallel to our ALRT tracks, only because that seems like a bit of a wheeze to me because my brain is broken. My wife may use cash a bit more than I do. The coin jar gets rolled up and deposited into the kids’ RESP account every few years. ---
**Author:** ![Onomatopoeia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/onomatopoeia/32/4145_2.png) [@Onomatopoeia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Onomatopoeia)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2011, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-spare-change-do-you-estimate-that-you-have-in-your-house/606331/29 "2011-12-15T22:20:23Z")
> [@drewtwo99](#): > > I have a question that has always bothered me. Why do people use the coinstar when banks will sort your coins for free for you? No fee or having to chose a gift card… just good ol’ cash, put right into your account if you want it! > > Do some/most banks just not have these machines? > [@Lynn\_Bodoni](#): > > A lot of banks either don’t have these machines, or they don’t let their non-business customers know about them. I know my credit union has one…and I also know that it’s unavailable at certain times, and those times have to do with the city employees’ payday. (It’s a CU for city employees and their relatives.) > > I’d also not be surprised if some banks won’t allow non-customers to use the machines. At our old bank, we had to label every single roll with our name, address, phone number, and account number. Now, I can understand why the bank wants that info…but we really didn’t enjoy putting that info on a label, and then having the coins sold to a convenience store or the like. When I took my change to my bank a few years ago, the employees were so amazed with the number of containers my wife and I Iugged in from the car that the manager gave the employee who guessed closest to the actual amount an extra half hour for lunch. It took almost an hour for their machine to sort, count, and wrap all my coins, but it was a fun hour, with the employees changing their guesses and the teller refilling the collection slots with empty wrappers, over, and over, and over. 🙂 The staff at my bank know me, and I do have a few accounts there, which is probably why they offered to count the coins while I waited. If they’d advised that I had to wrap the coins before bringing them in, I probably would have lugged them back home, refilled the bottles, and forgot about it, as there was no way I was going to wrap them myself. ---
**Author:** ![gotpasswords](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c57346/32.png) [@gotpasswords](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gotpasswords)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2011, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-spare-change-do-you-estimate-that-you-have-in-your-house/606331/30 "2011-12-15T22:24:22Z")
I can’t remember the last time I saw a bank that offered free coin counting for customers. Two weeks ago, I swapped a piggy bank full of coins for a set of ink cartridges for my printer, va a no-fee Amazon voucher at Coinstar. As a result, I’ve probably got less than two bucks worth in coins now. ---
**Author:** ![Onomatopoeia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/onomatopoeia/32/4145_2.png) [@Onomatopoeia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Onomatopoeia)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2011, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-spare-change-do-you-estimate-that-you-have-in-your-house/606331/31 "2011-12-15T22:28:09Z")
Missed the edit window. Once the teller reached a certain dollar amount of wrapped coins, the manager had the rest, which was most of it, actually, dumped into a number of small, thick, tan bags. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2011, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-spare-change-do-you-estimate-that-you-have-in-your-house/606331/32 "2011-12-15T22:30:21Z")
Can the coin-savers please explain your behavior to me? I genuinely don’t get it. I don’t save coins because (1) my budget won’t allow tens or hundreds or thousands of dollars sitting around unused, but if I did, (2) a savings account at .00001% interest would be a better idea than the metallic equivalent of stuffing dollars into a mattress. Is it because you don’t think of coins as money? Are you so rich that small demoninations are meaningless? Is it just fun to be surprised by an “extra” $20 once in a while when you lug the big inconvenient jar to a Coinstar? Are you too impatient to count out coins when paying cash / never pay cash and thus have no other use for them? ---
**Author:** ![Khadaji](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Khadaji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khadaji)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2011, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-spare-change-do-you-estimate-that-you-have-in-your-house/606331/33 "2011-12-15T22:48:05Z")
Around 350 dollars worth. I have a bank and it has a counter on it. ---
**Author:** ![Onomatopoeia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/onomatopoeia/32/4145_2.png) [@Onomatopoeia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Onomatopoeia)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2011, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-spare-change-do-you-estimate-that-you-have-in-your-house/606331/34 "2011-12-15T23:01:08Z")
> [@Dr.Drake](#): > > Can the coin-savers please explain your behavior to me? I genuinely don’t get it. > > I don’t save coins because (1) my budget won’t allow tens or hundreds or thousands of dollars sitting around unused, but if I did, (2) a savings account at .00001% interest would be a better idea than the metallic equivalent of stuffing dollars into a mattress. > > Is it because you don’t think of coins as money? Are you so rich that small demoninations are meaningless? Is it just fun to be surprised by an “extra” $20 once in a while when you lug the big inconvenient jar to a Coinstar? Are you too impatient to count out coins when paying cash / never pay cash and thus have no other use for them? For me, it’s probably a bit of OCD. I collect dollar bills too, which I [posted about here](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=14350468&postcount=42) in October. I’m actually worse with singles than change, but coins are heavier and a lot more unwieldy to store than bills, which is probably why I will take coins in to the bank every few years. Again, I can only speak for myself, but it has nothing to do with being rich, which I am not, and I most certainly do think of coins as money. I just like collecting, and legal tender just happens to be what I like to collect. I also have a few sets of the old blue American coin albums; two sets with every slot filled. I have never used a Coinstar, and because I understand you are charged for the service, something I can’t wrap my brain around, I would never use it. It is getting to the point where I don’t use cash for much anymore, so the pace and volume of my collecting has decelerated. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2011, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-spare-change-do-you-estimate-that-you-have-in-your-house/606331/35 "2011-12-15T23:33:36Z")
> [@Dr.Drake](#): > > Can the coin-savers please explain your behavior to me? I genuinely don’t get it. > > I don’t save coins because (1) my budget won’t allow tens or hundreds or thousands of dollars sitting around unused, but if I did, (2) a savings account at .00001% interest would be a better idea than the metallic equivalent of stuffing dollars into a mattress. > > Is it because you don’t think of coins as money? Are you so rich that small demoninations are meaningless? Is it just fun to be surprised by an “extra” $20 once in a while when you lug the big inconvenient jar to a Coinstar? Are you too impatient to count out coins when paying cash / never pay cash and thus have no other use for them? I’m not big on saving coins but I do have a small mayo jar of them. For me, and I suspect many folks it goes like this: I use a credit card for 98% of my retail purchases. And I make maybe 10 retail purchases per week, tops. So cash purchases are a less-than-once-per-month event for me.So I’m sure as hell not going to carry 13 or 87 or whatever cents worth of coins around for the next 5 weeks on the off chance that A) I might make a cash purchase today, and B) the change I already have will be enough to reduce the amount I get back. So if I’m not going to put coins in my pocket at the \*start \*of a day, what am I going to do with any I have at the \*end \*of a day? Dumping it in a jar seems like a sensible idea. I’ve read of younger dopers who simply throw it in the trash at the end of the day. That offends my sense of avoid-pointless-waste. Although I piss away a hell of a lot more than a fraction of a dollar on other pointless wastes each & every day. I have to admit that trashing change makes a certain sense. If I end up with 5 dollars of change at the end of 3 months it won’t even pay my vehicle mileage to make a special trip to the bank. So instead it sits around until there’s $20 or $30 then I make that semi-special trip to stop by a bank along my regular errands route with a free coin counter. I agree it seems silly for folks of modest means to sit on hundreds of $ in coins. Then again, if that’s the only way they can bring themselves to save, so be it. ---
**Author:** ![Chopper9760](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/cdc98d/32.png) [@Chopper9760](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chopper9760)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2011, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-spare-change-do-you-estimate-that-you-have-in-your-house/606331/36 "2011-12-16T00:13:18Z")
Though I don’t want the dollar to become our lowest currency, I really, REALLY hate carrying change. It does just pile up in the house and the car and it’s vexing. ---
**Author:** ![Rachellelogram](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rachellelogram/32/8689_2.png) [@Rachellelogram](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rachellelogram)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2011, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-spare-change-do-you-estimate-that-you-have-in-your-house/606331/37 "2011-12-16T00:16:34Z")
Zero cents of change in my house. I throw pennies away, I hate them. Any silver change I might have is in my purse, and gets spent in the vending machine as soon as I accumulate a dollar or two. I don’t carry cash, I use my card for everything. Cash can’t be canceled in the event of a robbery, and it doesn’t feel “real” to me. ---
**Author:** ![Onomatopoeia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/onomatopoeia/32/4145_2.png) [@Onomatopoeia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Onomatopoeia)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2011, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-spare-change-do-you-estimate-that-you-have-in-your-house/606331/38 "2011-12-16T00:35:45Z")
> [@rachelellogram](#): > > Zero cents of change in my house. I throw pennies away, I hate them. I will always pick up a penny if I notice one, or more, in the street. There must be a lot of people like you, because I see more now than ever, especially in shopping center and grocery store parking lots. > [@rachelellogram](#): > > Cash can’t be canceled in the event of a robbery, and it doesn’t feel “real” to me. I find that somewhat odd. Cash can’t be canceled in the event of a robbery, which is one reason it does feel “real” to me. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2011, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-spare-change-do-you-estimate-that-you-have-in-your-house/606331/39 "2011-12-16T00:55:54Z")
I have about $600-$700 in pennies alone. I’ve been hoarding them since the '60s, and they’re all sorted by date and mint mark. I do this every New Year’s. I also have a coin collection, but the really valuable coins are in a safe deposit box, not in the house. Their face value alone is into the thousands. ---
**Author:** ![Rachellelogram](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rachellelogram/32/8689_2.png) [@Rachellelogram](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rachellelogram)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2011, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-spare-change-do-you-estimate-that-you-have-in-your-house/606331/40 "2011-12-16T00:59:50Z")
> [@Onomatopoeia](#): > > I will always pick up a penny if I notice one, or more, in the street. There must be a lot of people like you, because I see more now than ever, especially in shopping center and grocery store parking lots.I find that somewhat odd. Cash can’t be canceled in the event of a robbery, which is one reason it does feel “real” to me. I got a debit card with the first bank account I opened in college. I’ve become wholly accustomed to a card being representative of one’s spendable wealth. Cash is dirty green paper that druggies use to snort cocaine, and it exists mainly for old people who don’t trust technology and for desperate guys to stick in a stripper’s bra. Obviously I \*know \*that money is legal tender, I’ve spent cash before. But on an emotional level, it just \*feels \*like a debit card is more… _real_. If I’m spending cash, it’s impossible to track. When I swipe my card, I can go home that night and make sure they took out the exact correct amount from my account. Cash can’t offer that kind of veracity. It’s low-tech! When I spend cash, I can’t keep track of my spending like I can with my debit card. It just doesn’t work for me. Count me as one who’ll be fucked when the machines take over the planet. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-spare-change-do-you-estimate-that-you-have-in-your-house/606331.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-spare-change-do-you-estimate-that-you-have-in-your-house/606331.md?page=3)