I got one of those a couple years ago as a Christmas gift but it never worked very well. The dimes kept ending up in the penny sleeves and sometimes it jammed.
If I turned them in at my credit union I had to write my name and account number on every sleeve. If I wanted to actually use them at a store I had to write my name, address and phone on every sleeve. It was a pain in the ass.
I have heard about the Amazon thing and I might do that next time the jug gets full.
I also think I need a larger jug. My best bet is mine will only hold about $60 in coins, maybe a little more, but I want to save hundreds and hundreds like some of you guys have.
A long time ago I when I was younger I was really broke and my daughter who was about four at the time had a cold and I needed to get her some cough & cold medicine. I sat and rolled all my coins but the majority of them were pennies. My credit union was not open on Saturday so I took them to a local bank. The bank would not take them since I did not have an account. I left in tears.
I went to Revco (drug store) and went to the lady at the counter and told her of my problem. At first she told me she could not take all those pennies but once she realized they were all rolled and labeled she took them all and I was able to get my daughters medicine.
You guys with your spare change issues just need to come and live in New Zealand. It has been at least a month since I had real money in my wallet (I needed actual cash for a work whip round) and our government thoughtfully removed all coins worth less then 10 cents.
Save coins? I never bloody see coins (I miss the coin jar).
I never have any actual money, but Purgatory Man collects assorted coins throughout the mysterious course of his day. We keep 'em in an old (glass!) water cooler jug. I’m not sure how much it’ll hold, but when it’s full we plan to load it onto the tractor, haul it out back, and bury it.
Chances are the bottle will break at least that happened to mine and it was not even an eighth full.
It was years ago and I am not even sure how it happened. My best guess is one of my kids or one of their friends decided to try and pick it up not realizing how heavy it was and the glass snapped off right were the change line was.
I would empty that and set in on a skid/pallet so that a tow motor can pick it up and drive it out to the back forty.
Most of my transactions are plastic, so I rarely have cash of any sort. My husband has a glass on his chest of drawers where he dumps silver coins, and we have a couple of penny pots.
I’m about due to count and roll pennies. We rarely have more than $6 worth, but I just deposit them in savings at the credit union. The glass of silver doesn’t ever fill because he’ll add to or take from all the time. We’ve never had huge amounts of coin in the house, but whenever we did have some, I’d sort and roll them myself. I find it to be a pleasant diversion. Having to roll thousands of dollars worth might change my mind, but for the little bit we have, it’s not bad.
I have several change jars. Because of the more recent developments in US coinage. I do it like this:
A ~3L vase is the main jar. Into it goes all zinc pennies, dimes, some quarters, and the occasional half or $1 coin. It gets full every 13 to 16 months, when I deposit it into my savings account (about $55-$90). My bank does not charge for counting, so I don’t get ripped off by that Coinstar nonsense(9%!? are you nuts?).
Pickle and spaghetti sauce jars are for copper pennies and nickels. If you don’t know why this is a good idea, just leaves more for me.
Jam jars are for quarters. I need quarters for various purposes (laundry, newspaper machines, other vending machines.
And one small special jar for super-shiny coins; you know, the ones that are spotless, and almost glow in the dark. When these get to where they’ll fill a roll, I put them away for future generations. A grand niephew or something.
I save all my change. I never carry a coin. Goes straight into the car’s junk tray.
A years worth won’t pay for the drive thru at McDonalds.
But I get so little these days, paying everything by debit card.
We’ve got a safety deposit box at a local bank, where if we maintain an account it costs X dollars, but if we don’t have an account it costs 2X dollars. Unfortunately the account has a minimum balance requirement of something like 300 bucks or they charge some huge monthly fee. We deposit the coins periodically to cover the cost of the safety deposit box rental so it keeps the account above the minimum balance. The account itself pays zippo (like, a half a percent), we figure the low interest rate is a cost involved in keeping the safety deposit box.
In fact, thanks for reminding me - the rental was due last week; they deducted it from the account so I need to make that deposit tomorrow!
My change usually ends up as “I’m broke” money. The last time I headed to the bank with a bag full of coins I had around $285 which held me over 'til the next pay day.
I keep the quarters separate in case we need to go to the car wash. I try to throw a $20 in the container when I can too.
This thread inspired me to to get out the various coin-filled vessels. I just finished rolling $25.50 in assorted pennies, dimes, and nickels. OK, so the vessels were on the small side. Still, it’ll be enough for a meal on the road when we drive to FL next weekend. So yay!
We had one of those huge water jugs. We had it probably an 8th full. I know there was over $500 in there - probably over $1000.
Last year one of the boys in my daughter’s first grade class had a house fire. The house was gone. Worse, his mother, father and little brother didn’t make it out.
They had a “collect your change” fundraiser for him. We gave them the jug.
With luck, we bought a kid a better future at a time he really needed it.
I have a small jar that I use for 1p and 2p coins because they were always the really useless ones to carry around. Now the café at the station has put up the price of my morning cuppa from £1.05 to £1.09 so I either take a few coppers out of the jar or I’m accumulating more every day.
I don’t know how much is in the jar, the supermarket I use now hasn’t got a CoinStar so I’ll have to take them elsewhere. My usual plan is to exchange the coins for a grocery slip, spend it on tins of cat food and give it to the nearest animal shelter. In fact, the supermarket with the CoinStar machine also has a collecting bin for a cat’s home. They must have seen me coming.
I too use plastic way more than cash now, so I don’t have it like I used to, but I never kept pennies, only sliver. I have a flower vase that I took for the purpose and when it’s full it’s damned near $300. It used to take a year or so before it was full, and last time I used it for getting another tattoo. Now, with the debit card in full effect I suspect it will take much longer to fill back up.
I don’t klnow about the Coinstar machines in the US, but over here they charge something ridiculous like 18 percent. More than “losing a few pennies”.
Anyway, change jars… my daily train fare is £15.40. At the start of the week I get cash out, £20 per day, then put whatever is left over in the jar at the end of the day. If I’m lazy and haven’t made my own lunch, I have to buy food so I don’t have much left. If I go the whole week only buying, say, one coffee, then I end up with a tidy sum in there.
I count them myself, and bag them up. Each time I go to the bank with a load of coins I ask for another couple of dozen bags. Last time I cashed in about £180 worth.
Thing is, coins in the UK are “proper money”, as we have £1 and £2 coins, i.e. $2 and $4, more or less. (Not that £1 over here buys anything like what $2 buys you!)
I have four jars of coins that I use as weights when gluing certain items together in woodworking projects. Any change after that goes to gas. I always stop the pump at around $x.89, and get rid of 89 cents of change that way. I know I could still use change even if I stopped at a round dollar amount, or any amount at all, but I just don’t. It’s gotta be around 89 cents or so.
I usually buy nothing with it, I save it for a “rainy day”, which luckily hasn’t come yet. I do pick out quarters for the car wash. My sister rolls the coins when the jar gets full, I usually give her 40% or so!