Throughout my high school years, I had a large glass vase in my room that collected all the change leftover from purchases I made. When I moved away to college, the vase was nearly full so I decided it was time to cash in my change. I ended up with $320. I was astonished at how much I ‘earned’ just from cents.
There are services, such as CoinStar, that allow you to dump your change in and you will get money in return. I’ve never used these before, because there is a fee to use the service. I took my change to a casino, where they cashed it for me for free. That was almost 10 years ago, so that policy may have changed. However, you can buy a bag of coin rolls from the store or even get some for free from your bank, then start rolling those coins. Once you are finished, just take the rolls to the bank and ask to trade them in for cash. Make sure the coins are rolled, or else the teller will have to take on that responsibility, which can be frustrating, speaking from experience.
Nowadays, I mainly use plastic instead of paper for my purchases. This has greatly decreased the amount of change I accumulate. But, I still have something to collect any change that I or my wife receive. Because I use plastic, I have enrolled in a program with my bank that essentially does the same thing I did in high school: for every transaction I make with my debit card, $1 gets automatically transferred into my savings account. I like that for a couple reasons. One, I’m not someone who makes an effort to save, so this program makes me save whether I want to or not. And two, it is only $1/transaction, so I don’t really miss ‘losing’ a dollar from my checking account.
We all know the saying ‘A penny saved is a penny earned’, but are we actually taking that adage seriously or simply letting change go by the way side? Don’t expect to get hundreds of dollars in change after only a few months. It took me nearly 4 years. Even if you can’t wait that long, you can count on having a little extra cash on hand, which is nice for a date night, a milk shake, or whatever. Do you have a piggy bank or something to collect change? How much have you ‘earned’ from collecting? I would love to hear your stories.
Photo Credit: iHeartDaily
My sister works at a bank that has a coin counting machine similar to Coinstar. The machine counts all your coins and gives you a receipt. You give the teller the receipt and you can choose to deposit it into your account or ask for cash. The service is free as long as you have an account and the tellers don’t have to roll the coins. I’ve used it on multiple occasions and find it really helpful.
By: Nivene CashNet (@Nivene_CashNet) on June 15, 2012
at 12:28 PM
I still collect change from cash purchases also! I usually cash it in at Christmas time so I can buy presents. I use Coinstar because it’s easy. Now they won’t charge you a fee if you exchange your coins for an Amazon gift card! You can use the gift card to buy things for other people.
By: Spencer Hardy on June 13, 2012
at 8:37 AM
That’s good to know. Thanks for the comment!
By: Ryan on June 13, 2012
at 8:41 AM