What do you do with all of that spare change lying around? At our house, we put it in a jar. When that jar gets full, we start another jar. Eventually, that jar gets full, too, so we start another one. All the while I'm imagining that I'll schlep those jars to the bank to get, well, money for all of it. But, practically speaking that just doesn't happen for us. Plus, I don't know if your bank does it for free, but most charge a percentage to convert coins to cash. With online banking I don't find myself running to the bank anymore, so I forget. But I DO run to the grocery store quite often... A couple of weeks ago we took jars and jars of coins to our local grocery store where there was a Coinstar machine. Now, Coinstar charges 9% (ouch!) to convert your coinage to cash, but it's free if you get it on certain gift certificates. We got a couple of Starbucks gift cards and a couple hundred dollars in Amazon.com money. You can also get iTunes (another favorite of mine) and many others. Click here to see what gift cards are available, and here to find out where there are Coinstar machines near you.
Coffee, tunes, and books... for all the spare change I had lying around. Works for me!
For more great tips, or to leave your own, visit Rocks In My Dryer. Have a wonderful Wednesday!
5 comments:
I had been avoiding coinstar altogether because I'm too stingy to pay their fees too. I had no idea they did the gift card thing. That's awesome.
Great idea. I had no idea it was free if you chose gift cards. I'll check that out. Thanks!
I don't think we have any coinstar's around here--we did when I lived in Washington. That is a great idea--and if we had starbuck's here--and the coinstar's--it would definitely work for us!!!
Now that's something I didn't know. We generally don't have a lot of change, since we rarely use cash, but I've always avoided the Coinstar machines because they charged so much.
Good tip!
I never realized you could get the certs -- great idea! thx
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