Do pennies really "add up?" - Page 3

[2xy]

Originally Posted by carfreemama

2xy, congratulations! What a wonderful treat. I hope you have a fabulous time.

Thank you!

DH and I joke that we're cursed because every time we've gone away or tried to do something special, it wound up being disastrous in some way. We're hoping for good luck on this mini-vacay.

[Alyantavid]

Thanks to this thread, ds1 and I are cashing in our coins at the grocery store today. My jar isn't even half full, so I'm not expecting alot but we'll see.

[carfreemama]

Alyantavid, I'll be interested to hear what the "take" was!

Dd and I are inspired now, for sure. I went hunting today. Of course, another unexpected gain to the change thing is that, since I'm paying so much attention to the "little stuff," I'm actually finding myself more conscious of the bigger indiscretions. I mean, what's the point of hunting for pennies under the couch if I'm then going to pay $10 in library fines? Maybe that's part of the wisdom behind "take care of the pennies..."

[zebra15]

Originally Posted by carfreemama

Alyantavid, I'll be interested to hear what the "take" was!

Dd and I are inspired now, for sure. I went hunting today. Of course, another unexpected gain to the change thing is that, since I'm paying so much attention to the "little stuff," I'm actually finding myself more conscious of the bigger indiscretions. I mean, what's the point of hunting for pennies under the couch if I'm then going to pay $10 in library fines? Maybe that's part of the wisdom behind "take care of the pennies..."

Because the $10 in library fines comes from 'found money' not budget money LOL...

[carfreemama]

That's true, zebra15! I guess it's a net gain. But I wish we were organized enough not to need a budget category for "fines." Not such a stretch, I guess, since we have 49 budget categories...

[Amys1st]

There was an assignment for math class for dd1. She needed change to count and did her assignment. Then she decided to count the change in her piggy bank. It was about $15. So she went around to all the change bowls around the house and put it all together. I told her whatever she counted, she could have. She gathered it all up and it was $75.

So then she bought her new softball helmut, bat and a few other things.

[SunRise]

I recently bought a jar with a lid that adds up the change as you push it in. Its at 28 dollars now, after three months. I recently separated the pennies from the silver though; the pennies took up too much room - they now go into a regular piggy bank. I suspect the pennies will add up, maybe 50 dollars after a year.

I do keep a bowl of change for spending - milk money, newspaper, etc. But when the bowl over flows, the excess goes into the jars.
I also have a basket in the car, and I empty my pockets and toss the coins in that as well, before sitting down and having the coins fall out and under the seat.
I plan to use the coins for a vacation in Feb 11

When I rented and used a laundry mat, the quarters were used there, but now that I own and have my own washer/dryer, the quarters go in the jar and it adds up much quicker.

[lucky_mia]

We use mostly cash and end up with a lot of change floating around our house. I try to give exact change but with two little one tugging at my legs and begging me to buy them some candy, I usually am just trying to get out of the store.

What I have been doing is gathering it up every few months and getting an Amazon gift card from the Coinstar machine. There is no fee for Amazon gift cards. I enter those into my Amazon account and I am hoping to use this to cover Christmas.

[Fuamami]

Originally Posted by Ruthla

How can any of you afford to save extra change in the first place?

When I get change, it goes into the change section of my wallet. When I buy something that isn't an even dollar amount, I'll pay out in exact change if I have enough coins to do so (at least if it's under 75 cents.) I have, at times, paid for necessary items at the end of the month with a few singles and over $1 in coins!

The change section of my wallet is torn, so I empty it out every night, or put the change in my pocket and empty that out at night.

We collect change, mostly dh's and MIL's, which she brings for the kids. Every Xmas I take it to the Coinstar machine because you can get Amazon gift certificates and not have to pay the fee. There's usually about $200 in there, and that covers Xmas for us.

[mamadelbosque]

It certainly can. DH almost never uses his change, and I only pay for things w/ exact change occasionally. I go around and collect up all the change that inevitably is lying around the house every now and then and stick it in a jar and maybe once or twice a year I roll coins. Its time consuming but its not like I'm doing much else in the evenings while watching tv

[lil_earthmomma]

Originally Posted by laohaire

OK, I'm writing very small because this is a guilty thing. Well, first, the clean thing: we don't use much cash so we don't have many coins, but I do roll up about $18 worth every few months. Not bad for a family that doesn't use cash.

But here's the shhhhhh part. (Checks to see if DH is around). Um, ok. I have started swiping the bills he lays around. Again, we don't typically use cash and in fact DH's current wallet doesn't even have a cash compartment, just cards. So on the rare occasion he gets cash, he'll just stick it somewhere, like on top the dresser or on his desk. I used to move it to our change jar so at least it was all together and not getting lost. But now I've been squirreling it. I have almost $60 that I've just lifted from here and there, and it's only been about 2 months. DH DOES NOT NOTICE. Which in turns makes me do this even more boldly. Because if he's not noticing, then the money is getting lost one way or another anyway (either literally lost or just blown on soda or whatever). He has never once asked me - "hey, did you see the $5 I had on my desk recently?"

I'm squirreling it for us, for a rainy day or savings or maybe it will be the last payment on our student loan or something. So he'll be happy when he finds out. In the meantime I'm being quiet about it. Except for, you know, posting this for the entire world to see, lol.

Hee hee aw, I love that you called this squirreling, as my dh caught me "squirreling" the second summer we were together. We get paid in cash, so he would just hand me a huge wad of bills every night and say "throw this into the cash box k?" and I would, but one night decided to put a twenty into another little box under my bed. I was saving for the midwives ($3500) and even though he was saving too, I noticed that he didn't notice this $20 "steal" every night, and so it was increasing the midwife fund much faster. Well one night he saw me slip the $20 into my little box and asked me about it and thought it was so cute. Now he knows that if I see bills lying around they go in a stash somewhere, so he'll even sometimes say, "that's for the squirrel pile honey."

[Alyantavid]

I ended up with $14 and ds got $12. I cashed mine in on an Itunes certificate and he got an Amazon one. They charged a fee to get a cash voucher so we went that route.

[carfreemama]

lil_earthmamma, that's so sweet!

You go, Alyantavid! Though I have to admit, I've never seen a coinstar or what not as people have described. I do know I tried to take my coins into the bank once and they said they only accept them from their own customers. It's a BANK. I thought they had to accept my change. We bank at the Credit Union, so I'll have to see what they say.

I suppose I could always save it up for the Salvation Army, so when they have their little banks I can take some with me whenever I'm Christmas shopping. Hmmm, am I feeling generous? No, actually; I'm feeling very, very selfish and greedy at the moment.

[zebra15]

http://www.coinstar.com/us/html/a-home

[sanguine_speed]

In Canada, we only have bills for $5 and up and we have $2 and $1 coins in addition to quarters, etc., so we have become accustomed to digging through the change purse to make purchases. This also makes me more likely to use the other coins in there, since I'm in there anyway.
I also really dislike a heavy wallet, so I will go out of my way to use my change. For instance, if I go to a coffee place drive-thru, after I get my total, say $1.25, I'll grab a $1 coin and a quarter, but between the speaker and the window, if there is a lineup, I will trade the coins for smaller denominations in my purse just to get rid of the coins. So if I figure I have time, I'll drop the quarter back into my wallet and dig out two dimes and a nickel instead. If I still have time, I'll look around to see if I have two nickels so I can drop a dime back in (lighter/smaller than two nickels!), and on.
All this to say, I spend my change! I budget every single dollar.

[Jyotsna]

I would love a VW van too, probably not the camper though.

I save change and put it in our jelly jars that we have already used up. If I run broke at the end of the month, I turn to the jars. I wish I could save it all for a VW. I have a 10 year old Honda Oddezzy and I am realy to change frequency when it comes to the amount of gas it is using.

[major_mama11]

Thanks to this thread, I cashed in a jar full of mostly DH's change for a $41 Lowes' gift card yesterday. Gonna use it for a much needed new toilet seat! And that was only about half of the huge pile of change from where he empties his pockets after work.

I think the next batch of change will go to an Amazon gift card, so I can start buying Christmas gifts for people using pocket change!

[Coconut Chronicles]

When I was 6 months pregnant with DS I got one of those cute kids piggy bank things as a gift. DH and I started putting any change we had or found (we tend to find alot in parking lots) into it and so did the grandparents. DS turned one this month and we've saved almost $200 for him.

We've decided to keep this up and one day give it to DS to put toward the down payment of his first home.