I never pay for cash for anything if I can help it. If I’m forced to accept change, I either dump it in the tip jar, or throw it on the ground.
I hate the feeling of having change loose in my pockets. I think I’m borderline obsessive-compulsive, or something. It actually makes me slightly anxious to carry change for while (very slightly, not like other people would notice), and I always feel a bit relieved when I can remove it from my pockets.
I figure this habit costs me about $2.50 a month. I’ll live.
I keep all change in a quart-sized jar in the kitchen. When it gets to be about 3/4 full, I take it to the free counting machine at the bank – it’s generally worth $125 or $150.
Three times while cruising the board today I have misread “Pennies” as “Penises” and thought “Well, if you don’t know, I’m certainly not going to tell you!!”
But with pennies, I have a jar in the house and a cup holder in the car, and eventually I hit the CoinStar (and I’ll have to start getting Amazon vouchers–I’m always pissed about that 8.9%). It’s been several months since I cashed in, and I’m looking forward to doing so since I no longer need quarters for laundry. That’s money, my friend.
I spend every last one, and I’ll pick them up, if you through them on the ground. I might not if I win a billion dollars, but then another poor smuck will need them more.
I keep all my coins–of whatever denomination–in Ziploc bags in my room, and I’ve been meaning to take them down to the bank and cash them. I no longer live across the street from my bank, though, so I haven’t gotten around to it.
I know, I know…
Hey, I just realized that I should take all my change to Coinstar (which is closer than the bank) and get me an Amazon gift certificate for next semester’s textbooks. Hrmm…
I saw a segment on the news about the two guys who invented Coinstar. They were recently college graduates and wanted to invent something to make themselves millionaires. They came up with Coinstar, patented the idea, and had a few made. They tried to get banks to buy them, but the banks refused. So they hit the grocery stores, and one bought it.
In a month, people were driving to that grocery to unload years worth of coins. Other stores contacted the guys and ordered them. In five years, the two were millionaires.
I give mine to my daughter, and she stashes them in one of her many piggy banks. We’ve yet to cash any of it in, and she’s now seven. I wonder how much it will be?
I throw them in an old tea tin with my other change (except for the laundry-earmarked quarters) and since I work in a bank, just bring them in every few days for deposit.
I can’t throw them away…it adds up.
My SIL squashes them in those machines.
She’s absolutely insane. She’ll drive 50 or 100 miles or more just to smash three pennies. There’s numerous websites to help her find them, too. She’ll visit any attraction to do nothing else, sometimes she’ll avoid paying entrance fees by agreeing to do nothing else inside. Rides at Disneyland are nothing to her, just the damned machines. She insists on using really shiny pennies, and you have to put them in the machine just so. I think I’ll shut up now, sorry.
I’ve got a cabinet by my front door. When I get home, I put my wallet, keys, company ID card and currency in the drawer and all my change in an Art Deco glass bowl on top. (No outlet nearby, or I’d put my cell phone charger there, too.)
When the bowl is full, I count the coins into paper rolls and keep them in small boxes.
A few months ago, I took the quarters, dimes and nickels to my bank and deposited about $1,100. When I have $100 in pennies I’ll take them in too.
Every night when I get home I empty my purse, wallet, and pockets (hey I never said I was consistent) of all coinage and put them in a tin under my vanity. In leaner times, it would be raided for the occasional coveted trip to the taqueria, but mostly it’s accumulating now. When the tin’s full I’m going to throw it into my savings account.
It’s pretty sad when you stop to consider that their fortune was built on the underlying concept that loose change is only worth ~91.5 cents on the dollar, and that the majority of Americans seem perfectly content with this state of affairs. More than happy, in fact: they’re stridently opposed to any attempt to reform the coinage.
I mostly do keep pennies and try to spend them when needed. The goal is always to avoid receiving more in change.
Honestly, I spend them. I have the Big Table of Change by the front door onto which I deposit all spare change, and before I leave for work in the morning, I grab four pennies. During the day, I use these to round the change part of transactions down to multiples of 5. I don’t think I’ve had more than 9 pennies on the Big Table of Change at any point in the last 6 months. (And there’s probably no less than $80 worth of “silver” change there.)
I have a five-gallon bucket full of change. My son bought me a coin rolling machine, but it didn’t work, so now I’m looking for an industrious kid who will get one roll for every four rolls he completes.
My credit union has a CoinStar machine. If you have an account or loan over (I think) $5000 with them, you don’t get charged a % fee when you use the machine.
I still don’t like pennies, though.
I might have a few in my purse which I spend when I don’t want to get more pennies back in change. When they make their way home, we’ve got several containers that we fill with pennies. When I get bored, I’ll dump 'em out and roll 'em, then deposit them in savings.
Money is money, and if I’m sitting around doing nothing, I may as well count to 50. When my daughter was little, I gave them to her, and she’d put them in her savings account. She still does.
