Ever since I was a kid, I've had a piggy bank. I don't know how many adults keep piggy banks of some sort, but I suspect there are others like me out there. On my kitchen counter I have a piggy bank that I use for spare change, and in my bedroom I have a piggy-bank cat that's chock full of quarters... so full I can't get another one into it. In my underwear drawer, I have a red makeup bag that does double duty as a bank (CYA has a literal meaning here). My most prized coins are some I've had since ~1968, a gift from my father. I keep them in a small blue bag in a secret place. I'm not the only one in the family who is involved in this practice. Dh keeps a gallon jar of coins, mostly pennies, in our closet.
Well, it had been a couple of years since I'd forced myself to roll coins, so early this morning I decided it was time to deal with some of these stashes. But since I HATE counting and wrapping coins, I took most of them to the Coinstar machine at Lucky's. I recently learned that by donating the money to one of their non-profit partners or by getting gift cards, there is no fee for using Coinstar. The kitchen piggy and the red bag produced $197.39 that I donated to Feeding America. The piggy-bank cat produced $134.50 that I used for Starbuck's and AMC gift cards.
As far as my little blue bag of old coins, these may be worth more than their face value because they are silver dollars, quarters, and dimes, so they definitely won't get fed to the Coinstar machine... I'm not quite sure how to go about unloading these, but I'll figure it out. And the penny jar... well, it's destined for Coinstar if dh is willing, but not until he can help with it. It's too heavy for me to carry.
February 21st, 2009 at 04:51 pm 1235235085
February 21st, 2009 at 05:13 pm 1235236393
February 21st, 2009 at 08:15 pm 1235247321
You could auction off valuable coins on Ebay. I have bought several silver coins that way.
February 22nd, 2009 at 01:53 am 1235267593
February 22nd, 2009 at 08:01 am 1235289673
At home I put my change into four different pewter steins from the Netherlands, a different one for each coin type and dollars go into the one with the quarters. I usually turn it in once a year for somewhere between 350 and 500.
February 22nd, 2009 at 02:37 pm 1235313479