Small change

[KuReshtin]

So, my mom's visiting me this week, and no mater how much I try to tidy up, she always starts rummaging around for more stuff to tidy away.

This time, she found the bowls of small change (1p, 2p, 5p, 10p and 20p coins) that I had standing around here and there. She decided that the bowls were too full, so I should go get them exchanged into 'real money'.

So I dumped the coins into a bag and headed off to get them sorted and exchanged.

Turns out I had about £70 (US$115 according to xe.com) worth of coins just lying around, collecting dust.

Have anyone else done this kind of thing and what's the most you ever had lying about without you realising it?

[potatocubed]

I found £100 in my sock drawer once, but that was in £20 notes.

I'm actually collecting my coppers at the moment in the hope they'll be worth something when my shiny piggy bank is full. I expect I'll get about a fiver out of the deal, but hey: it's a fiver I wouldn't have otherwise.

[SilverSheriff]

$50 worth of Silver coins, mostly 5 and 10 cent pieces.:smallamused:

[HellfireLover]

I used to save 5ps in a Jack Daniel's bottle. Got it about 1/6 full and it turned out to be about £20-worth. That was nice. Now loose change goes into a small, hollow owl which sits on the fireplace. I've not counted that yet. :smallcool:

[MrEdwardNigma]

I never have that much loose change lying around, really. I usually save the stuff until I have enough to pay someone with it entirely. Then I wait until I encounter a particularly rude waiter and I hand him some handfulls of change instead of "real money". The look on their faces is quite definitely worth it. :smallamused:

[banjo1985]

My biggest haul of loose change was about £70, nowadays I try and be a bit more organised and exchange it as soon as I get a reasonable amount.

I used to keep coppers in an eight pint whiskey bottle when I was little...not that I drunk the stuff of course :smalleek:

[Dogmantra]

I had a tin of loose change that I emptied twice before I retired it. I ended up getting about £25 overall. I really need to start doing that again...

[Generic Archer]

I have a money box that gets all my silver, i regularly have over $50 au in there, I exchange it for a far smaller weight of climbing gear...


Dane

[KuReshtin]

I usually don't consciously collect the small change. It's more a matter of emptying my pockets and just carrying the 50p, £1 and £2 coins with me, and the rest just lies around until I notice them next time, and then put them into these gathering bowls. And then I usually foget about them for a year or three before I get myself to go exchange it, and by that time, it's q decent amount of money.

I almost ended up buying a new printer for the money I got yesterday, but then realised I never use a printer at home anyways, so it'd be kind of useless.

[Jack Squat]

I let my change build up quite a bit before rolling, just because I don't like doing it too often.

This last time there was $206 before I got around to it. I've probably got about $40 laying around now.

[Pyrian]

I do my laundry at our complex's little laundromat. Consequently, I never have enough change and periodically have to go buy rolls of it.

[Yiuel]

It happens to me all the time.

In Canada, we have 1$ and 2$ coins, and I have a special money carrier where I place all my coins together. And I remember, in college (high-school for US) time, having over 20$ in change and paying pizza to my friends at that time. (20$ was enough, 7 years ago, to buy two large pizzas here.)

[Mauve Shirt]

I have an old poster tube with a hole in it that I use to collect spare change. It's got around $35 in it now. I won't cash it til it's completely full, though.

[Ashtar]

While cleaning out my room, I checked an old envelope and found 800 Swiss franks (525 €, 454 UK£, US$749) in notes I had lost and totally forgotten about. I can tell you, I was more than happy. ^^

Otherwise I keep a collection of 5 cent coins, and had over 3200 at last count.

[Eldan]

Damn. The best I could ever manage was about twenty franks in small change, and I kept that around anyway for the soda machine. Oh, and a fifty frank note I found under my bed once.

[Cristo Meyers]

When I was younger I used to end up with around $25-$50 US when I finally broke down and cashed in my spare change. I accumulated it pretty much every day. These days we just don't really accumulate change anymore.

[Alteran]

A year or two ago my family finally cashed in several jars of small change we had been collecting since before I was born. We ended up getting about $250 Canadian.

[Mauve Shirt]

When I was in my senior year of high school I picked up all of the change I found in the hallways of the school and by the end of the year I had around $20.

[Zherog]

Have anyone else done this kind of thing and what's the most you ever had lying about without you realising it?

I end up getting a lot of change throughout the year. For example, every day I go to work, I pay a toll of $1.60 each way. That's $.80 per day, or $4 per week.

Every year the weekend before GenCon I go to the bank and cash in the change I've collected. It's typically around $200 or so.

[RTGoodman]

I keep a couple of cups sitting around my room for pocket change, so I've done that a couple of times.

A couple of years back I had filled it up a couple of times and emptied it into a bag before I decided to count it out, and it turned out to be about $70. With some other money I had on hand, I had enough to buy a box of Magic boosters when 10th Edition came out.

Most recently, I had a cup full of change that I'd collected plus a big jar my grandma had, and when I counted we ended up with 148 quarters, 110 dimes, 120 nickels, 272 pennies (which = $57.72). I also found 2 pressed pennies, 1 nail, 1 bolt, 1 safety pen, a magic disappearing coin trick, and a lot of pocket lint. :smalltongue:


Now, my parents have been collecting pocket change for a couple of years, and now have about 1/3 to 1/2 of a big water cooler bottle full. :smalleek:

[RandomNPC]

i give most of my change to my son, or put it in the vending machine at work. My son almost has enough to open a bank account, all the banks arround here have that minimum starting balance thingie...

[Haruki-kun]

I once found $500 MXP in my bedside drawer. The moment I found them I remembered how it got there, but it felt pretty good since I'd forgotten all about them. :smalltongue:

[tusu47]

I found and extra $20 in my jacket pocket once when I was at the store and a bit short on cash to pay for what I wanted. I was never so happy to have forgotten I put money in the secret pocket a long time ago.:smallbiggrin:

[LCR]

When I was in my senior year of high school I picked up all of the change I found in the hallways of the school and by the end of the year I had around $20.

By then, of course, you were known as the crazy coin girl and had to spend your hard-found money on facial surgery in Brazil in order to maintain a social life.


:smalltongue:

[KuReshtin]

New collection has already started.

I've decided that I'm going to use the money I got to buy the 2-disc Watchmen DVD and a printer.

[Mauve Shirt]

By then, of course, you were known as the crazy coin girl and had to spend your hard-found money on facial surgery in Brazil in order to maintain a social life.


:smalltongue:

Well I did do stuff besides pick coins up off the floor. :smalltongue:

I found $10 in a pair of pants from the pile in my closet this morning! Hooray, pants money!

[Crimmy]

$320 MXP.
In small coins.
One by one.


and once, $650 MXP somehow dumped in pot.

A pot near a dumpster.

[Telonius]

My debit card does this automatically. It sends the change directly to my savings account, so it can start earning interest (all 1% of it :smallyuk:) right away. Not much, but it's pretty nifty. I'd never remember to roll up all those nickels otherwise.