Nickels and dimes

[cowboysgirlfriend]

Just need to brag for a second and nobody else is home. My beloved never empties his pockets, so when I do laundry I empty all of the change and dollar bills in his pockets into a plastic tub. I just counted it out and sorted the coins into rolls to take to the bank. I have $80, and a little left over.

It's an unorthodox savings method, but he's reliable in his inability to do anything with his change other than hoard it. The best haul I had with his small change was about a year ago when he had a gallon bucket full of change. We got $400 out of that one.

[Retired To Win]

For me, loose change is free money.  Completely off-budget.  Not accounted for in any of my expense tracking.  Just grab it, spend it and enjoy.  (Except I'm not sure how I would have approached it if I -- like you -- had had $400 of it piled up in a bucket!)

[Dicey]

Ha! This is pretty funny. You could also hoard it yourself until Coinstar has a deal. Sometimes you can dump in X amount of coins and get X+ a few dollars more credit. I've seen restaurants and grocery store offers so far. I understand that they usually do "put in $40 in coin, get a $50 credit [somewhere]" during the fourth quarter. If you don't patronize the outfit that's having the deal, you can just wait for the next offer. You do have to register on line with them, but that's why you have a junk email address, right?

[cowboysgirlfriend]

Gosh, I had no idea about the Coinstar deal thing! That sounds wonderful - that really is free money, isn't it?! I shall keep an eye out... Thanks for the tip!

[Josiecat]

No to coinstar.  You can take it to the bank for FREE.  Just put it in a plastic bag.  They have those coin counters in the back. They will either give you the cash or deposit it into your account.

[Dicey]

Not so fast Josiecat! The bank doesn't give bonuses and Coinstar does. Recently, Chili's was offering an extra $8 when you redeemed $40 in coins. Yeah, we eat at home most nights, but we redeemed $80 for $96 in credit and used it for a family birthday. The last deal was similar, but for a grocery store not in my part of the country. Last month I redeemed coins and due to a technical problem, instead of the expected gift certificate, I got cash back (less a staggering 10.9% fee - gads!). When I called, they were most helpful, and promised to send a check out right away. The agent who helped me is the person who told me about the Q4 40+10 deal. Yeah, last time I checked, banks don't do that.

Here's another thing that happened with Coinstar: My MIL rolls coins because she likes to. Due to her Alzheimer's, I can't trust what she puts into the rolls. I dump them into the machine at Coinstar to assure accuracy. One time, the machine spit out a coin that wasn't the right weight. I pulled it out of the slot and was pleasantly surprised to discover it was a silver quarter. Yeah, the bank wouldn't have caught that one either.

To summarize: Coinstar for cash is a complete rip-off (sorry, nice agent), but if you learn how it works, there are deals to be had.

[Shann106]

No to coinstar.  You can take it to the bank for FREE.  Just put it in a plastic bag.  They have those coin counters in the back. They will either give you the cash or deposit it into your account.

I wish this was true in our area, there isn't a bank around anymore that will do this

[Dicey]

Coinstar Update: Yippee! I did get a check for the 10.9% that was mistakenly deducted from my deposit.

This month, when I dumped all the rolls (neatly and inaccurately filled by my MIL) into the Coinstar machine, it sifted out three foreign coins, one golden slug and a silver dime. I'll collect the pure silver coins until I have enough to make it worthwhile and then I'll redeem them and give the total amount to the library.

No interesting special offers yet, but I'll post when I see one.