Loose Change Counting Without A Charge

[Ilaine]

It's that time of year.  As part of my annual de-cluttering, I need to take a lot of loose change somewhere.  I know Wegman's in Fairfax has a machine that will count it and give you a ticket towards shopping there without charge.

Any others?

And, yes, I know I could donate it but I'd rather donate via check and get a tax deduction.  It's that time of year, too.

[TheMatt]

Coinstar machines will not charge a fee/percentage if you get a "gift card" instead of cash. That is, when I turn in my change jar soon, I'll go to a coinstar machine and get the full value in Amazon credit. I'm sure their site has a list of their merchants. (Often they have "specials" where you get an extra, say, $10 of credit with $50 of change. Last I saw was for toysrus.)

Or you can try your bank. I know my credit union has a machine in one branch for counting change.

[Ilaine]

Oh, that's clever!  Whatever will they think of next?

[dcs]

The Giant in Virginia Square has a machine that I believe does not charge a fee if you take it in store credit,

[weezy]

Burke & Herbert in Springfield has a machine and I think it's free even if you don't have an account there, but worth a call to check if that's near you

[bookluvingbabe]

Coinstar's website lists which stores offer which fee-free gift cards.

Chevy Chase bank used to do it for free--Mr. BLB collected spare change in desk at work for 3 years.  Prior to going to Hawaii he brought home all the change and I cashed at Chevy Chase.  I had to go to a few different branches--I kept breaking the machine and he kept finding more.  In the end we had enough cash to pay for the rental car and all incidentals.  And I still had cash when I came back.

Chevy Chase stopped doing it for free after that.

(We also had a long talk about not hoarding money, what on earth was he buying every day, etc...)

[Joe H]

Great topic and I have a story.

My wife had over twenty years of "loose change."  Jugs, jars-every kind of container that you can imagine.  At some point there were so many jugs and jars that there was no room on the closet floor for anything else.

Then there was no room on the back wall of the closet.

Or one of the side walls.

I started carrying the jugs and jars out to my car.  Five trips, ten trips...more.  Each trip was with a container that weighed 20-25 pounds or more.  When I finished the trunk of my car was weighed down.  Like there was a body in it.  Or a lot of loose change.

I went to the Safeway in the South Lakes shopping center in Reston where they have a CoinStar machine.  After parking I went in and got a shopping cart and brought it out into the parking lot.  I hadn't given this a lot of thought but after filling the shopping cart with jugs and jars I still had a half dozen more.  I couldn't wheel two carts at the same time-I actually stood in the parking lot and wondered what to do?  The one cart was so heavy I wasn't even sure if I could push it!

My solution was to push the lighter  cart to the front of the store and then walk back, quickly, to my trunk and load the second cart-all the while watching the first cart.  I wasn't too worried.  After all there was 200 or more pounds of coins in it and I didn't think anybody was going to haul them away too quickly.

Anyway, I made it into the store and to the machine.  I started emptying each jug, each jar into the spinning tray.  I must note here that once that tray fills, a note flashes to please wait until the machine is able to count what is in it before filling it with more.  This took time.  More than a half hour.  At some point a few people saw me with the two shopping carts full of jugs and jars and noted the noise of the spinning tray and coins spilling into it.

I attracted a small crowd.

I went for cash.  I didn't care about a coupon-I just wanted the cash that more than 20 years of coins would bring.  Besides, it was my wife's money and it had taken her a long time to accumulate it.

$325 later I was finished.  The crowd left, I put the carts back and I walked to the service counter with my receipt for the money.

When I got home my wife told me that she had two more jars she had forgotten to give me.