I have started several change jars in my life. But a month or so in I cave and start taking money out. Maybe I’m just running to the store for bread and I don’t wanna put 45 cents on my debit card so I go to the change jar. Or maybe I need change for the vending machines at work. Little things like that. Consequently I don’t think I have ever saved more that 15 or 20 bucks in change.
I have friends who have massive collections of giant change jars stored in their garages & homes.
Go to the bank and purchase rolls of quarters, dimes, nickels and pennies. Go home and empty the rolls into your change jar. Presto, change jar full of coins.
Of course that’s rather pointless. What you’re doing is fine. Spending out of your change jar is more sensible than letting it collect until you get a hernia trying to move it to the bank.
I don’t tend to spend change in the first place, which is how I end up with it in the jar at the end of the day. So it follows that I’m not going to go to the jar to get money to spend.
But I also don’t treat quarters the same as the other change, since I use them for stuff like laundry. I never have spare quarters.
Ha! I just rolled the quarters in my change jars and ended up having over $150. And I haven’t even touched the dimes or nickels! All I ever spent out of it were the $1 and $2 coins and just kept putting all my other change in it for 2 years. Presto!
I think the problem is that you don’t have enough cash in your wallet to buy a loaf of bread. If your wallet has enough cash, and you frequently use bills to buy stuff, you will collect change quickly. If you use your debit card a lot, and fail to keep bills in your wallet, you will never wind up with enough change to develop a collection.
Of course, there really is nothing wrong with spending your change, unless you’re trying to save quarters for laundry or something.
I don’t have a change jar, but hubby refuses to use shrapnel (silver coins), so he leaves them in his pockets/dumps them on the bedside table. At any time we’ve got between $5-$15 of five and ten cent coins around the house somewhere.
I think I really just want to say “hey, I have this barrel of change that I’ve been saving for X amount of years!” Truly. I hear others speak of this feat and I am jealous that I can’t do it.
Before my SO moved in, we went to NYC on vacation. He wanted to give my son some spending money so he cashed in his change jar. 80 bucks!! :eek: He had only been putting loose change in there for a couple of months since the last cash out.
Since moving in with me he gets nowhere with his change, because of my dirty little habit of taking it.
I use a plain old Mason jar for change, and I never let it get full. I usually put quarters aside for laundry purposes, but with the invention of the CoinStar machine, change doesn’t last long around my house.
It also might have something to do with the fact that I can’t budget to save my life and actually need to go to the CoinStar in order to eat 'til my next paycheck.
When I buy a bottle of soda for 1.10, I hand the guy two bucks.
When I pay the .25 Parkway toll twice a day, I hand the guy a buck each time.
When I used to use a laundromat, I went in with a couple of singles which went into the change machine.
It all adds up to about $1,200 - $1,500 a year. A few hundred goes towards football pools each September, and the rest covers Christmas shopping.
Nooo! Why are you giving the CoinStar folks a percentage of your dough? Get thee to a Commerce Bank…Same as a CoinStar, but free!
I accumulate change because I prefer to pay to with bills. I don’t mind paying with quarters or one and two-dollar coins, but I feel like a dork whenever I have to hold a line up for a moment to pick nickels and dimes out of a handful of pocket change. The coins accumulate in my pocket fairly quickly; more than once, I’ve counted over seventeen dollars in pocket change. I sift out the pennies, nickels, and dimes, then buy something with eight bucks’ worth of coins. I’m saving the little coins; when I feel the need to make a big wish, I’ll bring them to a big fountain and dump them all out .
Is there a Correct Change Anonymous chapter available? I’m one of those dorks Max the Immortal posted about above who holds up the line digging those 3 pennies out of the bottom of my purse to pay the exact amount.
But hey, at least I have admitted my problem. I believe that’s the first step to recovery!
I’m starting my New Year resolution early.
I will no longer use change. I will no longer use change…
I hate carrying change around. I used to toss it into two jars near the head of my bed. I’d separate out the copper and silver change. Eventually these overflowed the jars, and became a giant pile of change. When I started dating someone, she insisted that the change be cleaned up, and sorted, and spent (on her), so I took several days rolling it all up. Turned out to be $750. Not bad.
I’m a certified member of the Never. Use. Change. brotherhood. Pennies, nickels, quarters, and dollar coins go into a large glass drawer every night. Dimes go into a wine bottle.
We ususally go to Laughlin, NV at least once a year to visit my wife’s relatives. When we go, the nickels and quarters go with us and that is our gambling money…it is usually several hundred dollars.
The dimes accumulate until the bottle is full. We cashed it out last year for about $220 and bought a portable DVD player for the car.
I use bills for the first purchase, and use bills & coins when convienent. If I’ve extra coins left in the pocket at the end of the day, the coins go into the jar. When the jar gets nearly too heavy to lift, or I’ve something that I’ve wanted for a while, then they get cashed in, and spent.
The jar once paid for my drinking/skiing/eating for a long weekend in Lake Tahoe, it’s currently pegged towards the funding of an ATV, or new hunting gear.
I don’t miss the <$3.00 /day and at the time of cash-in, I’ve a nice lump sum. Easy forced savings, like a christmas club, but without the bank holding the money, and no interest. (and let’s be honest, 1% of $200 is damn near nothing anyway)
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