We’ve all heard about the debate on whether or not the US should discontinue the penny, and I’m sure most of us have strong opinions on the matter.
However, this is a poll on what you DO with pennies? Let’s face it, they are pretty useless for almost all purposes. I started throwing them away, since my collecting instinct is overpowering enough without having containers of useless coins everywhere. Now when shopping at safeway (the most egregious violator of the ‘don’t give me stupid coins’ rule), I just take the quarters out of the change dispenser and leave everything smaller.
I don’t pay much attention to them, until my purse starts getting so heavy that I walk lopsided. Then I throw them into a jar I have on the shelf. I’ve brought them to one of those CoinStar things in the past, but they charge almost 9% to count them. But they just started offering free counting if, instead of a cash voucher, you took a gift certificate for Amazon.com or Starbucks or some other places. A couple of weeks ago, I got $12 to spend at Amazon from the jar that’s been accumulating for a year or so.
Still, I’m all in favor of eliminating the stupid things altogether.
I spend them every chance I get. Every cash transaction I check my pocket to see if I can use any pennies.
I’m not a tightwad, but I can’t see throwing them away. It’s not that much effort to deal with them. If you forgo a penny a day that’s over $3 a year, which isn’t much, but you pull three $1 bills out of your wallet and throw them away?
I have visited Italy a few times. A lira was worth about 1/10 of a US cent, but prices after tax were still to the lira. The first time I encountered this was buying gas. The attendant giving me my change just rounded to the nearest coins he had available. When I asked him about it he just shrugged. I think the same thing will happen here after enough inflation, like when gas is $10.50 a gallon, and bread is $6 a loaf, and an economy car costs $50,000, and a first-year accountant gets paid $150,000. We won’t officially drop it as a unit of currency but it will commonly be ignored.
We’ve already got penny boxes at every cash register, I’ll bet they didn’t have those in 1910.
I’ve got an empty 1.75 liter bottle of Barton’s Vodka sitting on my top closet shelf that has been collecting pennies since about late 1996. Pennies are now entering the ‘neck’ area.
Any guesses as to how much is in there? Maybe I’ll clear it out and see if it takes another 10 years to fill up.
I leave them on the counter, dispensing tray or leave-a-penny tray. If the clerk says “Don’t forget your pennies!” I ignore them or offer a wave of my hand.
I had a housemate once who’s BF used to see how far he could pitch them on the street. Yuck.
I save them. I save all my change, then take it to the bank where they put it in my savings account. Once I have enough, about once a year, I either spend the money from my change on something nice, or put it into my IRA account. They don’t add up to very much, but hey, it’s all good right?!!!
I refuse them if they’re offered as change, but if some make it home, they go into a huge wine bottle. The bottle is almost three feet high, and after four years of dropping pennies in, it’s almost full. We save silver in a quart jar.
Our bank counts all our coins and doesn’t charge for it.
Pennies remind me of my childhood, when you could buy things for a penny. I like 'em.
Another vote for the “quarters I keep, shrapnel goes in the jar for Coinstar Amazon tickets”. Amazon gift codes are as good as cash if you buy a lot of books (or anything else on Amazon, really).
shrug Pennies can be exchanged for goods and services. It only takes a couple of seconds to check if I have some pennies in the coin pocket on my wallet. I never have more than ten or so in there, and I don’t find it particularly onerous to count them. One . . . two . . . three . . . Not hard, is it?
I put mine, and all other change, in my Big Belly Bank. I have the blue dinosaur (third item). I recommend them highly for cute kids (and kids-at-heart) gifts. I won a charity auction for our children’s hospital and got him, and they have a huge floor model version of the same dino at our WalMart; the proceeds go to the hospital too.
He sometimes gets raided for quarters for the laundrymat but when he is about 3/4 full I empty him and take the change to the bank if I have time or to CoinStar if I need the money now!
All my change goes in my car ashtray or in the jar in the kitchen cabinet. When they’re both full, I got to the bank and cash it in. Depending on the mix, I can usually get about $50-60 bucks (if it’s quarter-heavy). Last time I went, I was penny and nickel-heavy and only got about $18-something.
There’s no fee at my bank. It’s a credit union, if that means anything.
I had no idea CoinStar charged 9%. :eek:
Damn, they must be making a fortune.
Pennies into a schooner I won at a fair 30+ years ago, quarters into the glass mug I won for Best Stout at Winterfest sometime in the 90’s, nickels and dimes into a USC mug. When they get full they get wrapped and stashed in a drawer. When the drawer gets too heavy to open, the whole lot gets taken to the credit union. Then we go to dinner on the proceeds. Last time we cashed in over $200 worth of coins.
I’m cheap…I’ll pick up a penny in a heartbeat. Heck, I usually find enough change just walking across the quad after lunch to buy a six-pack a month.
And thanks for the tip about Coinstar/Amazon! I have a plastic piggy bank full of pennies, nickels, and dimes that I should probably cash out soon but I didn’t want to take them back to the bank in case they charge a fee. There’s a Coinstar at my local grocery store, and I do like the occasional DVD set.
I leave them in my change purse and then unload them on little kids making wishes in the fountains at malls. They’re cute and I couldn’t think of a better way to spend that odd change.
I carry a purple Crown Royal drawstring bag with me just about at all times. Most of the time in my briefcase. Coins and small bills go in; coins and small bills go out.
I stop by the 7-11 on my way to work every morning and often in the evening as well. My office has a cafe, good for a coke or iced tea during the day. If the total is $1.21, I’ll fish out a dollar bill, a dime, and 11 pennies. Etc. Etc.
If the bag gets too heavy with change, I’ll just substitue quarters for the bills and then finish it off with the small change.
My bag is rarely empty and rarely full (it’s a rather self-correcting process), and I don’t waste any money.
Yeah, that’s what I do, I never get why pennies are such an issue. And it saves me money. If you never spend your change, that’s probably an extra ten bucks a week or so.
All change goes into a brass bowl on the dresser. When the bowl is full, it goes into a tin in the closet. At the end of hockey season I roll the proceeds to see how much I have toward a game-worn hockey jersey.