Thought this might help some of you.  I had a ton of change----well not a ton---77 pounds worth.  My bucket over fillith---so I got to working on it today finally after 10 years.  I am pretty well cashless now, as I am sure most of you are--so this bucket stems from a time when we used actual money for more than half our transactions.

 

Anyways---I took out all the quarters---saving those for a rainy day--just wanted to get rid of the small stuff.  Took a couple buckets of pennies, nickleks, dimes, lint, washers, wrappers, bus tokens, chuck e cheese tokens, and canadian coins to my local coin star.  There is normally a 9.8% fee for them to give you cash--but you can get it done free--if you elect an amazon voucher--which I did.

 

For your viewing pleasure--

 

    <- See it's easy starpod

 

I've got at least 500 in quarters too--now that I saw how easy this was---going to bring those in next and load up on a couple more hanuted houses and arkhams.

I am prpeparing to do this same thing. The lid won't close anymore on my coin bank it is so full, so I'm going to go ahead and do the coinstar thing instead of screwing around trying to roll all of it. Based on the size and type of coins I've been inserting, I'm expecting around 100-120 bucks to come out of it, which will be transferred to an Amazon gift voucher. The fee sucks, but getting the gift card without fee penalty I have no problem with.

TD bank does this for free

Amazon actually pays the fee.  I've said it a thousand times...I have no idea how they make money!   I am sure they aren't paying the full 9.8% coinstar fee, but the message said Amazon was coving the fee since I was getting a gift receipt for them.  I think there were 5 other stores as well to choose with no fee.  Or you can pay the 9.8% and get cash at the register of the store I was at.  Or you can roll it for hours.  Or join a credit union that will take it bucket stylee.

 

Plenty of options.

 

http://www.coincalc.com/

 

This is VERY accurate.  I came up with an extimate of 384.22 before I left for the store.  Came back with a receipt for 379.58 and a bunch of canadian coins.  I'd say it was within 3 bucks!

Nice... I do hate to pay with change, since it is embarrassing sometimes to pay a cashier $100+ worth of metal. Would feel sorry for both the people behind me in line and the cashier...

 

http://www.coincalc.com/

 

This is VERY accurate.  I came up with an extimate of 384.22 before I left for the store.  Came back with a receipt for 379.58 and a bunch of canadian coins.  I'd say it was within 3 bucks!

Thats cool! At td bank when u start dumping ur coins in a cartoon girl pops up on the screen and tells u to guess how much you have. If you are within a dollar or something you win a prize. I've never come close!

Nice... I do hate to pay with change, since it is embarrassing sometimes to pay a cashier $100+ worth of metal. Would feel sorry for both the people behind me in line and the cashier...

Pay the pizza delivery guy with change and watch his eyes roll.  Even if you tip him 5 bucks you'll still get a sigh. 

 

PS  Delivering pizzas paid my way through college.

Amazon actually pays the fee.  I've said it a thousand times...I have no idea how they make money!   I am sure they aren't paying the full 9.8% coinstar fee, but the message said Amazon was coving the fee since I was getting a gift receipt for them.  I think there were 5 other stores as well to choose with no fee.  Or you can pay the 9.8% and get cash at the register of the store I was at.  Or you can roll it for hours.  Or join a credit union that will take it bucket stylee.

 

Plenty of options.

 

http://www.coincalc.com/

 

This is VERY accurate.  I came up with an extimate of 384.22 before I left for the store.  Came back with a receipt for 379.58 and a bunch of canadian coins.  I'd say it was within 3 bucks!

 

I just checked out the site. I don't have a scale to weigh my jar but I estimated at 10 pounds and then did the handful counting technique. It calculated 104.50 for me which is in-line with my estimation in my previous post. Now I'll get to see how close it actually is to that. Pretty cool.

i Have about $15. I can get something small. lol

My friend banks with a local Credit Union that doesn't charge a fee to use their "WAY-better-than-coinstar" counter.

Pay the pizza delivery guy with change and watch his eyes roll.  Even if you tip him 5 bucks you'll still get a sigh. 

 

PS  Delivering pizzas paid my way through college.

Me, too. They'd pull out their litte sandwich bag full of change and I'd hesitate to take it lol.

I used coinstar to kickstart my investing, I'd been filling the bucket for three years and I got 196, and a haunted house cost me 194 with tax. I built it B)

     <- See it's easy starpod

 

 

 

This made me laugh uncontrollably. 

That was especially for you! The BS runs real deep here with some. "I got 20 vampire castles for $12 bucks!" Yeah right...post the receipt.

We'll still think you are cool if you really only got one for $69. And if you really only got 4 grand opening sets---you can still be our friend.

That was especially for you! The BS runs real deep here with some. "I got 20 vampire castles for $12 bucks!" Yeah right...post the receipt.We'll still think you are cool if you really only got one for $69. And if you really only got 4 grand opening sets---you can still be our friend.

????

Don't forget to check all those old birthday cards! Hubby once rounded up about $200 in forgotten birthday money early on in our marriage when our bank account was basically $0. (And yes, I saw that Seinfeld episode too )

I had no idea they gave fee free amazon vouchers! Time to gather the backpack full of coins and get me some amazon Legos!

To respond to the "post your receipts" on your BS, I've probably claimed a fair share of BS-worthy deals.

I haven't posted a single receipt, now that I think about it, but if anyone wants to see some as proof I am more than happy to oblidge. I just felt that posting each one would be too akin to gloating or something...

Where do you guys get so much change

Everyday after work I usually have a few in my pocket. It goes in the jar from there and every once in a while I roll them. This will be a nice option.

I used to do this when I was a kid. I'd roll it myself, walk into KB Toys and see how many discounted Lego's I could buy! It was so much fun. I may start doing the coin star amazon voucher thing though!

Where do you guys get so much change

I had a water jug filled 3/4 of the way to the top with coins and singles. The $ was supposed to be for my kids first car. Long story short, we were away for thanksgiving weekend a few years back and 2 heroine addicts broke in and of all the things they could have taken they went with the 70 lb jug of coins and singles. Well the morons, of course were spotted trying to carry the jug back to their house a few blocks away and eventually they were caught. In order to be sentenced to rehab instead of prison, one of the suspects wealthy grandmother paid restitution to us. The judge set restitution at $7k. How cool would it be if I had gotten that in amazon gift cards???

Side note: when my son who was 7 at the time heard that they were giving us our money back he said "no thank you!" The reason was that at some point it was revealed that the 2 guys took the singles to a strip club and he thought we would be getting those exact dollars back. At 7 yrs old I didn't know he even knew what a strip club was much less that he had formulated an opinions about them!

Did some more changing change into Legos. 2 haunted houses, an asylum and some small sets. Better than a bucket of change