Saving change

[LimeGreenCheri]

During our Budget chat the other night, the subject came up of saving change and how you "cash" it in. My banks requires that I roll the money.

Do you roll your coins? Does your bank roll your coins? Or do you take it to one of those change machines?

[HappyCamper]

Cheri:

My bank branch also requires that the money be rolled before it can be exchanged or deposited. Off to WalMart I went. We bought a change sorter and roller for $10. Put batteries in it and proceeded to sort and count about $160 in coins!! It was a great investment and is worth the money.

Debby

[Sheryl]

Every night we empty our lose change into an old Juice container(it was one of the Mickey juices and has Mickey and friends on it) and before we go away we have the boys help sort, count and roll it. Terry takes it to the bank and its split up evenly between the boys. For me the hard part is not breaking into it (we've super glued it more than once) for quarters. :roll:

Sheryl :minnie:

[WillCAD]

I've been saving change for my Disney trips for years. I've saved as much as $160 in a year, and once in a while I used to go get an extra roll of quarters to add to it. Once I wound up with almost $200 between what I saved and the extra rolls of quarters I added.

This year I've been on a much stricter budget. I've had less change to add and I've had to use the quarters for laundry a lot, so I've wound up with a measly $40 so far. But I supplemented that by going to the Disney store every payday for the past couple of months and buying $20 in Disney Dollars, so by the time my trip comes around, I should have my whole food budget saved up in DD$ alone. However much change I have saved will probably wind up going toward my food budget for the two days I plan on going to Universal, since they don't take Disney Dollars there (although I can't imagine why not!)

I don't like rolling a huge bunch of coins all at once, so I bought a $5 plastic thingy with four measured tubes. I take my change out at the end of each night, divide it up into the 4 tubes, and roll one roll at a time as they fill up.

My bank requires change to be rolled, and they also require my account number to be written on the rolls. They have a limit on how much I can cash in at one time (I think it's $100), but the tellers don't enforce that too strictly, especially if I have everything organized and my number written on the rolls ahead of time.

Preparation is key!

[Tracy]

Wow, you guys have very organized banks! At our bank we just take in our jar of money and they take care of it! We have been very bad lately with saving change, most of the spare quarters we have zach takes for milk money for lunch and alot of Sundays Zach takes a handful of change for his Sunday school offering, so we only have like $35 or so saved up, oh well $35 is better than nothing! Tracy

[Lisa]

We bring our change to the bank in gallon baggies and they dump it into a sorter, they have started charging for this and it makes me crazy....they are a BANK!! We call our savings bucket out "Family Fun Jar"


Lisa

[Brer]

We just take it to the bank and they drop in the change machine, NO CHARGE :P ...don't ya just love small town banks. Hopefully we can have 150 or more by Dec

[smallworld0]

Geez, where DO you people bank at?! 8)

I worked for a huge bank in Dayton and a super smalltown bank and I had to count and roll change in both banks, although they did have a bill counting machine. Customers had to not only roll their change, but include either name and phone # or name and account # on each coin wrapper.

We have a 2' tall CocaCola bank and have managed to fill it about 8 inches up before counting, usually around $200.

Nancy :mickeyXmas:

[Becky]

I have to roll my own change darn it. I keep all the silver in a can and all the pennies in a can to try to sort it better. I'm afraid that I'll dip into it if I save it for any length of time so....I roll $30. $40. at a time and take it to the bank. I then immediately have to race to the Disney STore to change it for Disney Dollars to ensure it's safety heehee :lol: . We haven't planned a next trip unfortunately but I have managed to save $156. in Disney Dollars and right now have about $40. to roll and take to the bank.

Becky

[SusanP]

Saving change here in Canada can really add up, as we have loonies (one dollar coin-has a loon on it) and twonies only for $1 and $2-no bills anymore. I do try to pay with bills only and dump the change, but really can't afford to do that completely as I could have $20 in change on any given day! I have little wrapper tubes on a shelf that I add the coins to and keep a tally on the side to know when they are full. I take mine to the bank and depost it into a US$ account. I will also put any "extra" money in there-rebate cheques, payment for sewing I do, etc. Since we are a border town, I often come across US change and save it and put it in my Cinderella's castle bank. I found out that I cannot cash in the US change-bank only handles the bills-so I save it and will use it if I shop over the river in the States, or take it to DW for laundry money, or hand the kids a roll of pennies each at checkin and they go find the arcade!
When I surprised my dh with a long weekend for his 40th a few years ago (not easy on a single income!!!) I saved change with a vengence for almost 5 months and had $256 dollars! Lots of that was the change he dumped out of his pocket at the end of the day and wouldn't take the next day.

[SuzyQ]

Well, I must say that you have very nice banks. My bank, which is suppose to be "home town" a la Corporation, charges me for any roll after 8. The charge is 10 cents per roll, so if I am bringing in pennies, I will be charged 20% of my deposit!

Now, I just take them in a few at a time and cash them out.

~Suzy

[KatEnigma]

Our bank only accepts rolled coins, as well. The problem is it's a pain to FIND the stupid rolls.

So last time, we took the change and dumped it into the change machine at the grocery store. IIRC, it charges 8%.

I'd saved about $60 when we had to use it in June to get us through until the insurance company paid us for the rental car after DH's accident. But I just counted it last night, in fact, and I already have close to $50. Instead of breaking into it for the laundromat, when we have to go for blankets and large things, we will usually get $20 in quarters, and whatever we don't use goes into the jar.

[MargaretJ]

You know I have never noticed if my Bank has a coin machine, I may have to ask the next time I am there. I bought a battery operated coin bank about 4 years ago & just drop the change in each night. I then put the coins in a coin wrapper when that roll gets full. Usually take to the bank when I get a $100.00 & then turn that into Traveler Checks. My Bank does not require name or acct # on the wrappers which is nice.

[Linda S]

We had bought two different coin rolling machines a couple of years ago - we had been saving in a 6-gallon water cooler jug for 5 or 6 years and had about $1,000 in it (there was probably a couple hundred in bills, I put ones in sometimes and any cash I find in the laundry goes in, I figure if we washed it we must not have needed it). ANYWAY...I rolled a few hundred in coins and put our name & acct. # on them and got called in a day or so...most of the rolls were 1-2 coins short, so I had to go get them and re-count and re-roll them. I then returned the machine, tried another, same results, so I just do them by hand now.
The kids can count into stacks of 10 and I roll it.

We are saving again for our next, date as of now underdermined, trip to Disney.

[smallworld0]

Our bank only accepts rolled coins, as well. The problem is it's a pain to FIND the stupid rolls.

So last time, we took the change and dumped it into the change machine at the grocery store. IIRC, it charges 8%.

I'd saved about $60 when we had to use it in June to get us through until the insurance company paid us for the rental car after DH's accident. But I just counted it last night, in fact, and I already have close to $50. Instead of breaking into it for the laundromat, when we have to go for blankets and large things, we will usually get $20 in quarters, and whatever we don't use goes into the jar.

Kat,

The banks will have coin wrappers that they should give you for free just for the asking.

Nancy :mickeyXmas:

[Cinderella]

We take our money to our change machine at our local supermarket. SOOOOOOOOOO much easier then counting out and rolling each coin. Just put all the money in and it gets sorted and your total comes up on the machine. It prints out a tape and you to customer service for the money. I've been saving all year and just went about a month ago and came out with $198. Then we drove to mall in MD to DisneyStore and I bought $150 in Disney Dollars for our trip.

I'm seeing more and more of these machines in the supermarkets close by so I guess they should be near everyone soon.

Cinderella

[Joanne]

We empty out our quarters each day into a water jug. Before each trip I roll them and bring to the bank. This past February we had been saving for two years and accumulated $1200. We then saved until our August trip in which we had $330.00.
What we do is anytime we buy something we only pay with bills. You'll be surprised how it accumalates without feeling a big pinch in the pocketbook.
We're going next summer and hope to have about $ 800.00 by then.

[Lady]

We save up our change each day in a Lady and Tramp Doggy Bank :)
When it is filled we empty it into another container - we could just use the container but it's more fun putting our money in the doggy bank - we ask each other from time to time "have you fed the dogs?" "feed the dogs!" etc. : )

We take the second container when it is full to our bank which has a coin machine and at no charge to us it counts it all out and gives us a receipt - we take that over to the teller and they ask if we want it back in paper money or if we want it deposited

We've bought a new toaster, microwave oven and electric can opener last year with our loose change - don't know about anyone else but all our stuff is breaking down all at once it seems : ( everything was bought back in 1990 so all our stuff is 14 years old!

Our loose change this time is being saved up for our Disney Trip : )
We're going to use it on food of course!

Shell