Thursday, September 17, 2015

Keep those coins!

I am sure that at one point in our lives, we had piggy banks!  I don't remember being able to fill up mine though.  I think I wasn't patient enough haha!
    
If piggy banks were a test of a person's patience, well, my husband is a winner!  (Actually, I don't need a piggy bank to tell me that, he is one of the most patient people I know)

This is his "piggy bank" (well, it is a baby bottle that is a piggy bank. . . I know you know what I mean, haha)


He has been religiously filling this up with all the loose change he gets for two years now.  Care to guess how much is in it?  (Make a wild guess before you reach the end of this post, it will be fun!)

One day, this bottle just had enough that we can't drop coins anymore.  So it's time to take everything out.  Actually I don't mind counting all the coins!  But thanks to Coinstar, it just makes counting coins so much easier and faster!

I call it the green ATM, haha!  


Coinstar was actually a brainchild of Jens Molbak and was used for his Graduate School project in Stanford University.  Please click on this link to know more about Coinstar's History.

How does it work?

Before you put your coins in the machine, you get to choose whether you want cash, an e-gift card or a charity donation.

If you choose cash, there is a 10% fee which they deduct from the total amount of coins.

If you prefer Gift card, there is no fee, thus, you will get the total amount at selected establishments like Amazon, Best Buy, Home Depot, Starbucks, Nike, Chili's, Sears, to name a few.

How easy can counting coins get with this machine?

Just drop the coins in a tray which would then lead to a slot.

Before you proceed, have you picked a number for the total amount of the coins in the bottle?!  If not, make one now and let's see how close you are! =)




At the end, the machine would show you the total amount of the coins and the breakdown:


It would probably have been $400 if the Princess didn't get some of the coins, haha!


So did you make a good guess?!

Honestly, I would have preferred a gift card from Home Depot than Nike but unfortunately the machine we went to only had Nike, Starbucks and Chili's!  I don't want to spend all that money just for coffee or food???  We thought it is the same for all kiosks but probably the one we went to had system problems.  We should have gone to other kiosks!  Oh well. . . we can start again!    

Remember, every penny counts!  Start saving those loose change, you will be surprised how much you'll save.

For more details about Coinstar, please visit their website.

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