I “collect” coins. I’m not a numismatist, though. Every day, or every couple days, I take whatever coins I have collected in my pocket and put them in the Garfield bank my mom made for me several years ago. When Garfield is full, I either deposit the money or spend it.
Now that I’m no longer an impoverished graduate student – I’m a not-quite-as-impoverished graduate with a crappy, but sufficient, job – I figure I can spare Garfield’s coins. I haven’t counted the change yet, but I figure it is in the $150 - $200 range. (That’s roughly Garfield’s usual output.) I can’t decide what to do with the money. Some of my ideas:
[ul]
[li]Save it[/li][li]Put it toward nicer Christmas gifts for family members[/li][li]Put it toward remodeling the ugly 1960’s bathroom in my recently-purchased house[/li][li]Put it in a college fund for my not-yet-conceived children[/li][li]Pay off a sliver of my student loan or credit card debt[/li][li]Donate it to my favorite charity (I would have to get a favorite one for this to work)[/li][li]Give it to a person or organization featured in one of the standard holiday human-interest stories likely to fill my local newspaper over the next couple months[/li][li]Put all the change into a single Salvation Army bell ringer’s kettle[/li][li]Hold a contest here on the SDMB. The person who most closely guesses the value of the coins gets to pick the charity or cause I donate the money to[/li][/ul]
What do you think I should do with the money? Should I go with one of my ideas? Do you have a better idea? Should I give it to you? Go ahead, make your case, Dopers! Garfield only has room for a few more coins, so time is running short!
If you’ve got credit card debt [or any kind of debt, really], I strongly advise putting it toward that. Give a little bit of it to charity if you want. I’m not knocking charity, mind you – I give constantly to a couple of organizations. However, I do think putting it toward the debt is the best idea.
We just got out of a hellish debt situation, so maybe I’m biased, though.
I have a 3 feet tall Pepsi bottle that I am slowly filling. I’m wondering how much money will be in there when all is said and done. I figure I put in 2-5 dollars a week and have been doing so for many years. It is heavy on the silver side, but has it’s share of copper. Lately I have been trying to avoid copper.
Dunno what I’ll do with mine when I’m done either.
I plunk pennies into a coin tube; when it’s full I slip the pennies into a wrapper. The finished rolls go into an old Seagram’s whisky-bottle container, which holds about $26.00 worth of pennies. When it’s full I cash them in.
And there’s a dime bank–a Mason jar (with a handle!) that I put my dimes into. It holds about $100.00 worth of dimes.
If I find wheat-ear pennies or silver coins, however, I keep them. (Once, in my change, I got a Russian kopek* instead of a penny, at a supermarket.
*According to Richard Armour, a kopek is worth 2 1/2 bottle tops.
I vote for paying your credit card with it. Pay your normal monthly amount, plus all of your accumulated change. Next month, they may offer you a payment holiday. Don’t take it!
As I see it, you have two choices: The adult, logical thing to do is put it towards a credit card debt. The fun, childish thing to do is take it to a Salvation Army kettle, and pour it all in from about 3’ above the kettle, so it makes a very loud noise. Then run away before they can thank you!
Debt. Debt, debt, debt. You could get a loan for anything else you want to do for far less interest than you’re paying on your credit card. If people actually saw using plastic as borrowing money at 15-25%, they’d never do it. (Yeah, dumb me too.)
After that, remodel that nasty bathroom. It’s a gift to yourself that will keep on giving both to you now and to you when you sell the house.
Just to seventh (or whatever) the recomendation to use it toward the credit card. But with one proviso. Cut the credit card up. Seriously. Don’t argue. Just do it. If you can give me a good reason to not do it, please do.
