Getting rid of spare change

13 Replies

Like most people I have a box of spare change that is inconvenient (or embarrassing) to go out and spend.

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This is a common enough practice that there are machines in UK supermarkets that will sort your loose change for you and print a voucher for the supermarket, which is nice and convenient except that that they take 8.9% commission (you could, of course, go to the bank, but the whole point of such machines is that people are in supermarkets a lot more than they are in banks, and apparently the difference is enough to make the commision worthwhile).

 

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What’s interesting, is that also in the supermarket (in the UK at least) there are these the self service checkouts, and they have an inviting hole for coins.

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…and they work just like the larger coin sorters. (Eagle eyed viewers will note that this photo was taken at a different supermarket than the one above – largely because they don’t have one of the big sorting machines at my tiny local supermarket)

So when I have a box of change to get rid of – I go in at a quiet time (this is important, because you would hold the queue up otherwise), I do my weekly shop and I empty my jingling pockets a bit at a time into the hopper. Some coins are rejected (an astonishing proportion turn out to be US currency) but the bill rachets down and anything remaining is paid on a credit card.  I just think this is an elegant way to clear out your change and ease your budget a little, while avoiding the 8.9% overhead.

Categories: Productivity

13 thoughts on “Getting rid of spare change”

    • Me

      1. Some banks require change to be sorted into bags.

      2. I don’t want to go to the bank and then the supermarket. Why not just go to the supermarket.

      3. Stop being a rude cunt.

      Reply
    • hgbguy

      i don’t think you understand what this machine actually does let me give you a scenario. i have 168 ‘2’ and ‘1’ pence coins. in a bank i have to note exactly how many of them are 2 pence and 1 pence on a pay in book counting them individually myself and writing it in the pay in book and if the bank teller wants me to they can ask me to count it for them to verify that the claimed amount is correct or they have to spend ages counting it for you to make sure its correct and you aren’t asking for more than you actually have. ANY normal person doesn’t have the time and patience to do something so taxing for something that will probably make only so many pounds that its not worth the effort. this machine is a breakthrough, i understand maybe it can glitch computers aren’t perfect but what else are you going to do with those millions of pennies gathered from spare change after paying too much and don’t get me wrong its good to have a few pennies if someone is asking an awkward price like pay 27p for a chocolate bar unless you want more spare change just use the spare change to pay the awkward price but when you have too much of it you really need to just throw it away and this makes it a more profitable way of throwing away pennies that would otherwise never become pounds unless you were creepily dedicated to the bank. also i want to point out there is no such thing as normal, the idea of normal is whatever the mass majority of people are doing at that time in history thats accepted socially everywhere but it isn’t accepted socially everywhere because every country has its own agenda religion(which is always bullshit btw) and philosophy that becomes THEIR normal. so you can shut the hell up about normal like you know what it means.

      Reply
  3. Oleg

    Not sure if they have those change drops at the self check-outs in the US… will pay closer attention next time.

    I usually pop over to TD bank (don’t think you need to even be a customer) and they have their own change machine. Dump your jar into it, it’ll give you a receipt that you take up to the teller and get cash with no fees.

    Reply
  8. Stephen Liss

    Mal, I think the point is that if you spend, say, $20 on groceries, and $5 of that is change, then you put the other $15 on a credit card.

    Reply

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