Buzz
How do you manage your extra coins? Do you deposit them in your bank account, exchange them at Coinstar, leave them in a tip jar, or have you completely gone cashless, eliminating any coins from your wallet or purse for years?
At The Financial Diet, Casira Copes shares how much money she managed to save by collecting spare change over a decade:
I decided to roll all my coins myself. Rolling involves placing the coins into paper wrappers (which are typically available for free at your bank) so that they are grouped into easily countable amounts, like $2, $5, $10, and so on. Many banks no longer offer coin counting services, and machines like
Coinstar
charge a fee of about 10%.
So, I manually counted each coin, totaling $2,534.60.
Not bad, right? Well... maybe. Copes points out that it took her several weeks to roll and transport her coins to the bank, which some people might consider a significant amount of wasted time. She also mentions that by keeping the coins in a jar, she lost out on the potential compound interest she could have earned by depositing them in a savings or retirement account immediately.
Since I enjoy doing the math: saving around $250 per year for ten years in a savings account with a 1.5% APY would result in $2,735.58. You could earn about another year's worth of coin savings in interest, give or take, but it wouldn't be life-changing money.
If you invested that same amount at a steady yet conservative 4% return, you'd end up with approximately $2,996.72.
On the other hand, depositing an extra $2,534.60 into your bank account all at once feels like an unexpected windfall.
That's why so many people find putting spare change in a piggy bank effective. The change stays out of sight and out of mind—and once you've accumulated enough coins, it feels like you're cashing in a pile of free money.
I'm one of those people who prefers to avoid dealing with too much spare change. According to YNAB, I've only spent $40 in cash this year; the rest of my spending has been through credit/debit cards and the occasional check. If I happen to have a few leftover coins after a necessary cash transaction, I usually end up dropping them into the nearest tip jar or wishing well.
What about you?
Update: As many of you pointed out, Coinstar waives its processing fee if you receive your payout in gift cards. Keep this in mind the next time you find yourself with a pile of coins!
