Saving Pennies: Coins DO Add Up!

When I was little, my family had a Snoopy Bank that sat in our dining room. Whenever you went out and found coins on the ground, you had to put them in the bank. When this bank was filled, we would count the coins together, roll them and then go out to dinner the following weekend. It was a fun way to teach us about saving money.

Now that I’m older and have my own money I’m spending, I do something similar. I’ve started using cash for my everyday expenses (Food, Gas, Dry Cleaning, ect.) and have started saving my coins again. When I started this last year, I was convinced that I wouldn’t end up saving much. In August of last year, I filled my little jar, I had $75.50 in coins. I put the rolled coins in a purse and took them over to the bank and deposited them. I also asked for more coin wrappers, which my bank gave me for free!

What I did with them next amused my boyfriend. After depositing them I went home and moved them from my regular checking account to an ING Orange (now Capital One 360) account I made specifically for saving my pennies. The account has a 0.75% APY Interest rate on it so I ended up earning $0.19 on my original investment.

So after August I started filling my Jar again. I decided near the end of December to count out the coins and roll them to start fresh for the New Year. I was also given a bigger Jar for Christmas for saving my coins. This time I only had $44.00 to deposit. Since this is being put in savings, any money is good money.

Since adding the $44 into the account, I’ve earned a whole $0.14 cents more interest bringing my total in the account to $119.83! Not bad for the coins that could have gotten lost in the couch! I’ve earned $0.32 just by counting out my coins and setting them to work!

Some Banks (like TD Bank) have an in store coin counter that is free to use for their customers. There is a fee for non-customers. TD bank used to have a “bonus” if you guessed the amount of money before hand and were within a dollar or two. 

Many supermarkets also have Coin Star Machines, which charge you to count your coins if you are receiving cash back from them. The Coin Star Machine at my local supermarket will not charge you a fee if you are converting your coins to a supermarket gift card or a donation to one of their charities. The fee according to Coin Star’s website is “Fee for our coin counting service is 9.8 cents per dollar counted in USA; 11.9 cents per dollar counted in Canada. Fees may vary by location.”

If in 2012 I used coin star to count my change, they would have charged me a total of $11.71 to count it! Sure that’s not a lot of money, but it’s my money!

If you’re going to save coins, go to the bank and get wrappers and wrap it yourself. If your bank won’t give you wrappers, Walmart and Amazon and possibly dollar stores sell coin wrappers for around $5-10 depending on the pack size.

My hopes for my large jar is to fill it by the end of the year. I’d like to imagine having at least $150 in it by the end of the year. It may be more it may be less. There will be an updated on this when the jar is full. Maybe I'll make art before wrapping it!