Keeping your loose change in a coin jar is nothing new, but still a decent savings habit. You won’t miss the change, since individually it’s so small, but it can quickly add up. I recently cashed in my jar for about $100.
Gone are the days when you had to roll your coins and bring them to the bank to get cash. I just go to my grocery store and dump my jar into the Coinstar machine there. I wouldn’t use Coinstar if I had to pay their processing fee, since it’s a high 8.9%. That takes a big byte out of your total.
To get the Coinstar machine to count my coins for free, I take my cash in the form of an Amazon.com gift card. I shop regularly on Amazon anyway, so for me that’s nearly as good as cash. There are many other gift cards that you can choose to get free coin counting. Coinstar’s website estimates that a 1 Gallon jar of coins is worth over $225, which is more than just chump change.
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November 8th, 2007 at 8:06 pm
Hi!
As a Coinstar Rep I thought you might be interested in knowing that there’s more than $10 billion (yes, Billion) in loose change hiding in homes across the U.S., which is roughly a $90 stash among those households that accumulate.
That’s great that you went for an Amazon.com gift card. We’d love to hear if you decided to splurge on anything fun at Amazon! Feel free to share your Cash-In story with us here at Coinstar: http://coinstar.com/us/html/userStoryWithFile.html
Also check out this Coinstar video of an Oregon man cashing in 7 years of saved coins. He went for the Circuit City Gift Card and got an HDTV! Click here to view it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kn7sZJrgKqA
Best,
Sydney