Saving coins and/or dollars?

[shelbylovesmelby]

We split up the coin into funds. 3 piggy banks to buy savings bonds or certificates of deposit for the kids, the rest goes in to the slush fund for summer activities for the family (Zoo Pass, Soccer, Family Swim Pass).

[rduell]

I save the coins. I have an account set up in Quicken and I keep track of how many of each different coin I have so I know when I have enough to roll. At the end of the month I deposit the rolled coins and use that money to either pay more on the CC or apply it to a budget category that we overspent.

[Ima saver]

My bank doesn't want rolled coins, they will count them for you for free. i keep track of how much I have and deposit them into my savings about once a month, so i can earn interest. Right now the money goes towards my $20 challenge!!

[tinapbeana]

that's funny, ima, b/c my bank WON'T accept loose change, it has to be rolled. and they don't have a coin counting machine. ARGH!!! i hear they do provide coin wrappers, though...

[krayziebone33]

that's funny, ima, b/c my bank WON'T accept loose change, it has to be rolled. and they don't have a coin counting machine. ARGH!!! i hear they do provide coin wrappers, though...

My bank charges $5 to use their coin machine and they do not give out free coin wrappers.

[kealina]

we use our change and small bills at garage sales and also at the swap meet (where my mom sells and i occasionally drag our stuff when we clean/purge) to use as change when people give us $20 bills... then we keep the $20 bills until we have a larger cash bill or we deposit those in the bank once we get a fair amount...
we almost always end up using our quarters, dimes and nickels though...it helps that we just use our credit card for most purchases so that we aren't handling lots of cash and don't get lots of change back...

[th_tan]

A few years ago, right before the Superbowl, I bought a big plastic bottle (shaped as a beer bottle) filled with popcorn. The cap has a slot so you can use the bottle as a change bottle after eating the popcorn.

I been saving since, I always put my change in their, and if I find bills on the ground outside when I work, I pick them up, and down the bottle they go. Its great because once its filled up, I have about $200-350, and I treat myself to some shopping.

[krayziebone33]

I treat myself to some shopping.

Do you want to know the funny thing about what you said? The whole time that I starting saving my coins it was with the idea that once I had a sizeable amount, I would use that amount for shopping and pleasure. I told myself that I would not put that money into my emergency fund. When I realized that I had saved about $150 in coins, I was sure that I was going to run to Best Buy or Circuit City and load up on computer accessories . . . well, whatever I could afford for that much. Instead, I ended up throwing it right into my emergency fund and I refuse to use it even though I would like an external hard drive and I would like to add RAM to my computer. Ah well.

[Staceyy]

We only save change. I tried saving dollar bills but dh kept stealing them. We save about $500 in change in a years time then we take them to the bank with a free coin counter. I like saving change, because I know it won't get dipped into.

[rob62521]

We tried saving change, but my husband always feels he has to have a huge pocketful of change (good thing he has a strong belt) with him. So, I always raid his pennies and put them in a bank. When I'm ready to take them to the bank, he usually throws in what he has in change. I have found I have to budget to put money into savings accounts because otherwise we wouldn't get enough. I do use the change to add to either our Christmas Club or our vacation fund.

[lrjohnson]

I tried saving coins/dollars before, I just ended up spending it sooner or later. I do much better by budgeting my cash on hand carefully, having a modest monthly personal allowance and socking the rest away in my savings account where its earning interest.

Me too. I have never seen saving change as saving for me, because I tend not spend what's in my account, so having it out of my account doesn't benefit me. I use mostly debit and EFT to pay for bills and purchases. I use cash rarely, mostly for garage sales. I do roll and deposit these coins, but I much prefer keeping the monmey in the bank to start with, gaining interest.

If I wasn't naturally inclined to save, I might use saving change and dollars as a way to force me to save.

[krayziebone33]

Even when I use my debit card, I round up and save the change.

[sakigt]

I save the change, and sometimes bills if I have extra. Im on a strict $400 a month budget for fun money and gas so Im hesitant about stashing away those extra bucks.

To make up for that, I throw my $5 Pinecone checks in there as well. I usually make deposits of around $50 or so every 6 weeks. It adds up quick!

PS: I roll my own change. It doesnt take very long if you do it often enough.

[luvnspnful]

i empty out the cavernous purse i carry and my pockets once a week and deposit all my change ( which includes our lovely $1 and $2 dollar coins here in canada) into it. roughly once a month i bring a huge ziploc bag to work with me and put it into my little guy's account. i work for a Big 5 bank here in canada so i have the added convenience of not inconveniencing myself to save it. i managed to save over $800 for him in just 4 months doing this. if i could just cut out my Starbucks habit im sure id triple his act in a month.
ps. we dont charge at my bank for taking coin deposits/exchanges. its a huge PITA for us and we groan everytime someone walks up with a carton loaded with pennies but its part of the package we offer our clients. we give out free paper wrappers too, but we keep the preformed coin rollers for ourselves since we pay a huge cost to order them from our stationary supplier. we only take rolled coin from non-clients but for act holders we will take loose coin.

[jodi]

I don't intentionally save coins - whatever I have left over from a transaction (which is rare, since I mostly use my debit card) goes into the change purse in my wallet for a later transaction. I tend to only carry about $10-20 at any given time, so using change from a previous transaction allows me to go slightly longer between trips to the ATM. On the rare occasion that I have change in my pocket at the end of the day, it goes into a piggy bank on my dresser, which later gets separated into the old mason jars we have for each denomination of coin. I raid these for my garage sales. Every few years when they do happen to get too full, we cash them in (last time was a year ago before our Vegas trip). I prefer my money to stay in the bank, so it's never a huge amount.