Pennies add up

Thought we were running out of candy for the trick or treaters - so I broke out the piggy bank - Didn't need to use it & in putting it away counted $5-6 since I started putting in small change a month or so ago - Not bad  - I have also opened a savings account (again) and joined the Bank of America program "Save the Change" which rounds out to the dollar when you use your ATM card & puts the balance in your savings account. (And they match the first $ up to something like $250!) - It used to be so easy to put $ in my little account when I was 10 or 12 - What happened?  If nothing else, the change is almost invisible. But how so I get it into the bank?  Coin star machines? I saw one in a bank back east.  Now that would be easy.  They are all in supermarkets here....

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Saving coins is a great thing to do, I do that myself. I do roll my coins myself though. Coinstar in my area (I guess this is everywhere-not sure) charges a fee to count the coins. You can, however, get the entire amount of the coins without service fee if you take a gift card. Most of the cards are for places I would not shop at. If you want full value for your money you may just want to roll your own.

I actually enjoy rolling my coins. I guess I have a Mr. Krabbs (from Spongebob Squarepants) complex. "I loves me. money".

I think saving change is a great way to save money! I am usually broke most of the time, so I find it so hard to save "paper" money, but a change jug is easy for me. Any savings is better than no savings at all! I even hand the cashier bills to get the change back to go into my jug. I never take the change out of my change purse to pay in the store, it all goes home and into the jug. The first time I took my change into the bank I used it to pay on a charge card, this time I will use it for Christmas shopping. My bank lets you use their change machine at no charge, if your bank doesn't offer that then I would roll the change rather than pay the coinstar fee! I like how you said that you opened a savings account "again". Never give up! Keep opening a new savings if you have to, trying is better than not trying at all. I just opened up a Christmas Club for the first time in three years...I like the account because I am forced to save, they don't let me take ANY of the money out until they send the checks out next October. My regular savings I put it in one week and take it out the next because of some catastrophe (usually auto repair related), but I refuse to give up and I just keep putting it back in. You also mentioned the Bank of America plan, which I think is a good one if you are going to use a charge card. You could "save the change" by writing checks too, most stores let you write over the amount and you could round up your total to an even amount and then get the change to take home to your change jar.

What I do is let the coinstar count all the pennies and nickels and roll the dimes, quarters, and occasional half dollars. Make sure to write your account number on the paper rollers BEFORE you roll the coins. Otherwise it is hard to write it on there and my bank requires it.

Susan from ThriftyFun

My wife and I save all our change. I save pennies and nickels. She saves dimes and quarters. Last year my pennies and nickels bought ,bread ,milk and gasoline when our bank accounts were bare. My wife actually paid for a trip to Ohio with a church group with her savings.
We are both very faithful putting our change into containers and never touching it unless it is absolutely necessary.
Well you all probably know change buys nothing anymore. You have to make dollars and that's what we do.
Oh and we have an understanding bank that takes our change without charging us. We can either wrap it or take it in to their counting machine.
Well I guess I will wrap another 2 dollars worth of nickels.
Happy Coin Saving
From
Mr. Thrifty

I have been saving change for long time. Since I was a teenager. (We wont mention how long ago that was. LOL) As the years go by though I notice I have less change to put in the jar. At first I was disheartened untill I realized that I had slowed down on my spending then I was elated. It saddened me though to know that it was going to take me much longer to save for trips or special occasions. Years ago $500 a year was nothing, but now it seems that it takes the entire year to save $150.

My grandmother saved wheat pennies when I was growing up. Although they are not around anymore and hard to find, everytime I see a penny I am reminded of her. I wrote an essay for a college course which I titled "A Guardian Angel is a Penny." Anyway, I try to save change and pick up every penny I find. But I have begun to save one dollar bills which have the letter "H" or "D" on them in the circle. You see, I am saving for a Harley Davidson motorcycle. I realize I have a long way to go but in the meantime its fun trying to find certain dollar bills. A friend at work saved letter "C's" for the cruise she was taking this month.

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