Inspired by the “How much cash do you carry” and “What can you buy for a quarter” threads.
In years past, I always had SOME amount of loose change in my pockets. As I was pocketing my wallet, keys, etc., I’d scoop up maybe $1 of loose change and put it in my pocket. If I bought anything, I’d use the change to pay exact or reduce the change I received. I’d also have coins in the car for tolls pre IPass.
Nowadays, just about the only thing I use change for is to mark my golf ball on the greens. I place it in a container and if I or my wife are intending to buy something for cash, we bring it to get rid of it. We do not amass large jars full of change, use CoinStar, or anything.
How about you?
And, folk who never carry/pay cash, no need to observe that you don’t get/use change.
The small towns in my local area still use parking meters that take quarters, dimes and nickles so I always have a selection of coinage with me for that reason.
I also pay with cash frequently and will provide the cashier with exact change.
I have a huge ceramic jar at home with change that I will occasionally wrap up in sleeves to take to the bank for paper money.
For me, “loose change” is pretty much an obsolete term. I pay with apps and credit cards. A couple of months ago, the system was down at Dunkin’ Donuts, and I had to pay with a $5 bill. I just let the crew member keep the change.
I don’t get much change anymore, since I pay by phone tap most of the time. But the change I do get goes in a jar at home - it used to be much more active. We pull quarters out for parking meters in our cars but even that has mostly been supplanted by apps.
Periodically, I would take the jar to a CoinStar machine and get an Amazon card since they don’t take a cut, but I haven’t had to do that in a few years.
I’ve a drawer in my kitchen that has among other things a plastic bag full of coins and loose cash. I’ve never gotten around to moving the coins to a jar or the like just because I so seldom even think of it anymore, much less use it.
On the very rare occasion that I get change, I leave it on the counter except for quarters. Those go in my car to pay for the occasional parking meter.
I have a jar in the house that any loose change in my pockets goes into at the end of the day. In that jar there is a zip top bag that the quarters are separated into and that bag is taken with us when we leave for an extended camping trip where they may be needed for doing laundry or if we encounter a coin-operated shower. The rest gets taken to the coin sorter at my bank when the jar gets full and deposited into my account.
Loose change goes to the top of my dresser. When that gets too crowded, I take the change down and segregate it into the different coins, which I store in a series of containers (old Altoids tins). When those get full enough, I put the coins into rolls (I have a huge collection of empty coin rolls). When I get enough rolls, I take them to the bank. It’s part of the Great Circle of Coin Life.
If I’m paying cash and have loose change, I try to spend the change down whenever I can. For instance, if something is $X.40 and I have two quarters, I’ll add the two quarters to the cash so I’ll be just left with 10 cents.
A good way to get rid of coins is at the self-checkout station at stores. You can dump the coins into the coin slot and it will deduct the value from your total. Then you can pay the remainder with a credit card or whatever.
I drop it in a pocket of my shoulder bag. If this really builds up a lot, I use the coins-to-cash machine at the local supermarket. About the only thing I use cash for these days is an occasional taxi fare: some of the local drivers don’t accept credit cards.
I almost never get any change these days, as about the only thing that isn’t paid by debit/credit is the occasional dollar store purchase. $1 and $2 coins go into my coin pocket (and stay there until the next dollar store visit) while anything else goes into the coin can on the dresser. Before I retired, I would pay cash for my morning drink and bagel at work, and the can would be emptied into a Coinstar a couple of times a year (no Amazon cards here, unfortunately). It’s now only about half full after almost 10 years.
Change goes into my pocket until I get home, then into a coin jar on my dresser. I hang onto quarters: I sometimes take the commuter train into downtown Chicago, and I use $1.50 in quarters to pay for parking at the municipal lot across the street from the local train station; plus, my wife collects the various commemorative quarters, and so, she always goes through any new quarters I get to see if there are any new ones she needs for her collection.
The rest of the change winds up accumulating until the jar is about full, at which point I take it to my bank’s local branch to turn in, in exchange for a small deposit into my account.
I never carry change any more. I have several stashes of coins in the house, accumulated from the days when I used to carry change and periodically empty my pockets of the excess. I keep telling myself that I need to bag all this change and take it to a local CoinStar machine and turn it into an Amazon gift card. However, I also need to go through the coins to check for any possible collectible coins; I’m also pretty sure there are some “lucky coins” that I used to carry, among them a 5-cent Irish Euro.