loose change
 

it's crazy to think how loose change adds up. i put together some quarters and rolled them, which is painstaking, but came up with close to $300 dollars. i seem to always gain a large amount of change throughout the weeks and try to manage it. does anyone else roll or do you dump the money in those machines at grocery stores?

I have a rather tall coin bank roughly the size of and in the shape of a flamingo that I've had since I was a kid. Everytime I fill it up, I used to stick them in my coin sorter, but it broke. So now, when I fill it, I'll go to the Commerce Bank Penny Arcade and it counts it all for me and saves me time and money. I just go when I cash my paycheck on Saturday.

My local branch requires too many hoops to be jumped thru to take coins to the bank (roll them, then put your name address and account number on each roll),. plus their hours aren't practical.

The CoinStar machines are convenient, I just have to remember to have that change with me...

When I lived in NYC, if I seperated the change, pennies in one bag, nickels in one, and dimes in another, I could take it to the local bodegas and they'd weigh it, and give me the cash for it - -they were usually correct within a few cents, saved them the trouble of going to the bank, and made my life easy.

All my loose change comes in handy, because where I park for work is like 6.50 so I've always got the .50 part of the equation.

If you are gonna get ripped off for parking prices, why give them more than they deserve???

300 bucks is a pretty nice chunk of "change" to have though. I wish I could muster up that much loose coinage!!!

I have a small change pocket in my wallet, and it gets annoying quickly if I have a lot of change. So, I use my change constantly to keep it less than $1 in change.

Heh - funny coinstar story:

In college I once helped out a buddy who was in charge of filling/emptying a soda machine. Well he got lazy on cashing all the change in for quite a while, so we had a big mail crate full of change. I'm talking probably 100lbs or something crazy like that. We lugged this thing to the local grocery store and dumped it all into the coinstar machine. Its a LONG, slow process.

In the end, we broke $1000, at which point you become a member of the "coinstar 1000 club" and get a free t-shirt.

Course the 8 or 9 percent coinstar takes is pretty obscene.

OQwerty1 has the best way of doing it...Commerce bank is popping up all over the country and they have machines that count the change for you and don't even charge you...even when you take your voucher to the teller, you don't even get a sales pitch to open an account if you don't have one there...

I've got a big old fashioned water jug that I am progressively filling up. It has about 4-5 inches of coinage in the bottom as I type. I've been trying to make a good stirdy funnel to put on top of it. I was thinking about taking a plastic water jug and cutting the top off and duct tape them mouth to mouth.

-BD

Haha - glad I'm not the only one who considers change an "endangered species" and seeks to preserve as much of the population as possible within jars.

I've currently got about $500 or so in change. Was shocked as hell once I just started saving toonies and loonies and quarters here and there. I let my wife spend the rest of it though dimes, nickels, pennies - since she has room for it in her purse.
(I use a money clip to prevent myself from getting too large a wallet full of receipts)

I am one of those people that NEVER uses change, when I get home I throw it in a jar.

About once or twice a month I take the jar to the bank, and they have one of those coinstar-esque machines, that count the change and give you a receipt.

Then I just deposit in my checking account to use to create more change. Thankfully, they don't charge for that service.

Working in a resteraunt years ago I had $50 or so in change everyday. It was nice because you take home pay every day you work and although the wages was crap you still always had money in your pocket you were just trying to burn.

My bank has a coin sorter, and counts it for free. I have a little bucket that I toss my change in. It really doesn't take long to get $50+. If I am patient enough to let the bucket get completely full, it can be around $200.

Good point, tooth. Your local bank should have a machine like this and should offer the service for free. If they don't, go ask. Squeeky wheel and all that.

I've probably thrown away $1000 in change in the past. It's not uncommon for me to throw away anything smaller than a quarter.

I use my change all the time... it is useful on the streetcar and paying for things like coffee...

Of course, in Canada we have $1 and $2 coins so our change is in large denominations...

CoinStar is the way to go in Northern California. None... I mean - none- of the Banks will take our change...kinda sad, IMHO. So once a year I go to CoinStar - esp. in December and use the $100 bucks or more for a charity or such locally.

Or when my nieces visit, let them roll it & take them to the bank to exchange it for bills. Ah, the value of a buck! They learn fast and I feel generous. We usually go buy CDs of Tunes!!! Rock on...

Yeah, California sucks. We either have to go to Coinstar where they take 9% or else none of the banks take coins or have that service.

Which banks have coin machines? I can't find Commerce Bank, it looks like they're only in NJ, PA, CT, NY.

Anyone know for Southern California?

Constar would be nice if they didnt take your money away from you. Thats why i keep my loose change in a bucket, then take it into work and switch it for cash. All you gotta do is count it, then put it in the drawer. No rolling, no nothin'. Just plain easy.

We used to have a big water jug for change, but hubby kept kicking it. When he broke his toe on it, we rolled the coins and cashed it in and threw away the jug. (over $1000, which was only about 6 inches of change, mostly small coins and not quarters)

Now we have an old wooden cigar box that we put change in. I'm about to separate the change and take it up to the bar my hubby runs and cash it in. I'm not paying Coinstar if I don't have to, and its mindless, easy work to count change... you can do it while you watch tv or whatever.

I just keep my change in a jar-type deal I have in my apartment, and then when it builds up, I pass it off to my friend. Her bank apparently has a Coinstar-ish machine or something of that nature, but the best part is that it doesn't take anything away from you if you have an account there. So, that works for me, obviously. Sometimes it's good to have friends who... well... have bank accounts at a different bank. :)

I don't use cash so much anymore... so my cash bowl has suffered... at the same time, I've benefitted from getting mileage for my airlines...

free trips have been quite nice.

I'll keep it and use it nowadays. Troy doesn't seem to have homeless people (too cold?), but when I was in Hoboken or NYC, I'd always give it to a homeless guy. They appreciate it more than I do. Heck, I'm usually glad to get rid of it. It just adds weight to my already heavy wallet.

I managed to save a couple of thousand dollars with my coin jar. I made a point of dumping my change everyday (we have $1 and $2 coins) and tossing in a crumpled fiver here and there.
Now that I use plastic instead of cash, my jar is taking forever to fill.

A friend of mine has an interesting method.

He has a neice. He takes his change, and drops it into a cut-open coke bottle. Large change (1$ and 2$ coins) are filtered out.

Every year he gives this change to his neice for christmas. They sit down and roll all the change into rolls together -- a good bit of bonding. A good chunk of it is put into a savings account, and the rest is avialiable for her to spend.