I keep a penny bank in my house, really it stores all coins, but who cares. Many of these coins are received when something is purchased in cash - an activity that is rare for me, but much more common for my wife. In addition to that, I have an eagle eye for anything that is remotely shiny and on the ground. If I were to say I had a super power, it is finding loose change. I was blessed with this ability at a real young age, you know when this kind of thing is cute, funny, and seemingly useful. Fast forward to my early 30s, and its not cute anymore. However, it is still hilarious. It has led to so many good jokes at my expense. The apex of this is an ongoing text conversation where I am asked if I would pick up a coin, and then the picture follows. Usually the coin is somewhere terrible - in an intersection, urinal, etc. Often I say no, but sometimes I say yes. In real life, if there is something socially weird or unsafe, no I touch that crap up, but otherwise - hell yes. Then that coin along with all the loose change in the house goes into the penny bank.
Once you have all that loose change what will you do with it? No one is going to roll those coins, no one has that kind of time. No one is going to go to a Coinstar machine and suffer a 3-6% fee ... OR will they? The thing I have discovered is Coinstar machines allow people to convert the coins, fee free, to give certificates for companies of your choosing. These include Netflix (NFLX), Amazon (AMZN), and Walmart (WMT). Since my wife loves AMZN, the answer is clear. Recently, I tested this out by taking my coins to the local grocery store, and getting a sweet gift code for Amazon. The timing could not have been better as I had a necessary purchase to make at that time. Saved me a solid $85 that I would have otherwise had to take out of my bottom line - away from investments.
Coming full circle, one of my friends is the polar opposite with me when it comes to loose change. He literally throws it away, especially pennies. Sure maybe over his lifetime that will about amount to $20-30 total of pennies, but that is one extra hour of your life you need to work. Rather than doing that work, just save it. Every cent in your pocket is one more you can have working for you.
What do you do with your loose change?
- Gremlin
- Long WMT
Great post Gremlin! No one is going to say that saving a penny produces results that day. But you're right, over time, those pesky pennies add up. I could care less that it costs more to make than they are worth, not my problem haha In aggregate though, after years of saving, it adds up. Unlike you though, I like rolling my coins. One rainy night, I did it at home with my wife while watching TV. We had a blast doing it. It turns out that we had amassed over $100 in coins (not just pennies) over the years together. That went right to my mortgage and shaved off a nice fraction of a month at the end of it all.
ReplyDeleteWith you, I'll pick up anything in front of me :)
Bert
Bert,
DeleteThanks for sharing! I used to work at a bank, and I found the coin rolling thing to be a bit of a pain - so now I can just get AMZN cash, which is something that will be used anyway. $100 is a good, sum; it adds up fast indeed!
Side story, one time at the bank a customer cashed in a roll of quarters, which was partly full of slugs. That was debited from his the account post cashing.
- Gremlin
I remember in high school people throwing pennies on the ground i would pick them up and get a pack of cigerettes averaged about 1 free pack a week maybe more that way. I still pick them up and save every thing. i check the coinstar macjhines also. found a token the other day in one.
ReplyDeleteD and H,
DeleteHa! Great story. One person's trash another person's treasure, and in this case it was straight cash. Now you know you can use those coinstar machines potentially to cover some future purchases.
- Gremlin