Change Jars: What Are You Saving For?
While watching TV the other night I saw a new Coinstar commercial with the slogan, "Cash in; go splurge," and I have to admit being a bit disturbed by it. I mean, do we really need another push to spend money? Should we be rushing out to convert our change into another splurge?
I'm far from convinced. While I think it's perfectly okay to save change for a trip or some other purchase that falls outside of your normal budget, I don't think this is what the commerical means by "go splurge." To me, the ad reads as little more than encouragement to spend freely and thoughtlessly--not a message that consumers need to hear, and not a message that this consumer is likely to buy into.
So, that leads me to this question: what do you use your change jar for? In my house it's used for retirement savings. Each time we reach $100 the money gets invested. It may be boring, but it works.
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I usually use my change for something I need or want and don’t take the money for it otherwise. I should save it though.
What’s more disturbing to me is the cost of cashing in at a Coinstar: 8.9% fee in the US, unless you opt for a gift card where available. Of course, one may save time by using Coinstar…
I sorted my change jar in late ‘06, and sent over $200 to help prepay my mortgage- maybe not the best or most exciting investment for some, but it was a good use of “change” for me.
We’re tight on finances at the moment, so our change jar serves as a safety net. Like if we are tight for gas or grocery money, it’s a back up to get us through the rough patches. Plus, I grab a few quarters from it here and there for our youngsters (ages 4, 5, and 7) when they want to do an extra chore and earn a little change.
We must be the Change Jar family!!
I have 3 - the smallest ‘brown’ coins (we’re English) go to an animal charity we support and cash it all in once a year and send them a cheque. The next size coins (20p)I save in a plastic tube which when full is equal to £20. This I spend on clothes. All other silver change (10p, 50p and £1 coins) go in a huge jar. This is toward the mobile home we are after getting as we’re all getting too old to camp! My daughter and her (resident) boyfriend have also caught the ‘bug’ and they both save silver coins for their holidays and the boyfried has another jar for fooball related purchases (membership, tickets, shirts etc)
My husband has one for books!
Just waiting for the dog to start his own now!!
Presently , I have 3 coin cans, one for charity, one for the house and one for me. The best thing I ever use the savings for, was when my husband graduated from college , in his 50’s, and I gave him 75.00 as a gift !
I am a firm believer in saving change.
I have been also saving quarters for my daughter who is in college , for laundry money !!
Happy Savings !
Last year, after my son’s Christmas money came from grandparents, we rolled (by hand, of course) over $400 in loose change and dropped it into a CD at the bank. When that CD matures next month, we’ll be renewing with all the change collected since. We’re not a family with expendible income, so it brings peace that we’re still able to save something towards our toddler’s future.
CREDIT CARD PAYMENTS
Yuck.
We save every penny, nickel, dime and quarter all year in a very big jug and that is our vacation fund. We used our change jar this past year as all of our spending $ in Disney World. And we brought back change….
I used to work as a bartender years ago, and every night I worked I brought home lots of change. I started saving it, and after six months I had enough saved to take a small vacation to the mountains. This was before tips were taxed as income (which I still think is unfair, even though I don’t receive tips anymore). I don’t miss my days as a bartender too much, but I sure miss the daily cash in my pocket!
We save any extra change and empty our pockets at night. I read in a book once that your emergency savings should consist of 1/3 small bills, 1/3 change, and 1/3 gold or silver. We figure this is a pretty smart way to save up for emergencies (in times of crisis, currency may be a little tricky). So we have approximately $100 saved up in coin so far.
Our change gets saved and goes into our children’s saving accounts. Soon I will be taking that money and putting it into CD’s for even more earnings. Every little penny adds up!
We never give a retailer change. If something costs $4.50 we give them a 5.00 bill and the .50 goes into a jar. We were calling it our trailer money… saving for a popup camper. We got a small inheritance and used it to buy the camper, so now I’m not sure what we are calling the saved change. We’ll probably use it to buy needed items for the trailer or maybe a canoe or travel money. Whatever we decide we’ll decide it has a family. My son has 3 kinds of savings banks for his coins… one for spending, one for saving for his future the other is to give to his favorite charity. The coin savings helps him to visualize that saving money brings about good things, so we use it to buy things that the whole family can enjoy as a family.
Our bank offers a coin star type machine, but they charge nothing for using it. I’m sure it saves them money and time for people to use it instead of bringing in a bunch of rolled coins.. probably half of which are incorrectly filled.
Our change is saved for vacations. This year the change jar was enough to pay for our whole camping trip with lots leftover for next year.
We save it for camping spending and the yearly fall fair, so it is a splurge….like for ice cream and carnival rides.
This might sound weird, but I buy stamps with my saved change (especially the pennies). I hear that post office will be discontinuing the use of stamp vending machines in the near future, so I guess I’ll need a new plan.
iSTARTED SAVING CHANGE FOR THE FIRST TIME ABOUT 6 MONTHS BEFORE VACATION. bY THE TIME THE VACATION WAS TO START I HAD ENOUGH TO PAY FOR THE VACATION AND SPENDING MONEY. NOW I START EVERY JANUARY TO SAVE FOR THE FOLLOWING CHRISTMAS. I ALWAYS HAVE ENOUGH TO BUY PRESENTS, DONATE TO CHARITY AND BUY MYSELF SOME LUXURY. IT IS PAINLESS AND YOU NEVER MISS THE MONEY. I TAKE IT TO MY CREDIT UNION AND THEY HAVE A FREE COUNTING MACHINE.
When my children were coming up, the change jar was for lunch money, school needs (pencils, paper, etc), then it was used for college laundry, bus fare. Now that they are grown, we use it as our Christmas gift money. It’s a great help when that extra gift is needed at the last moment. Last year we got 219.00 from cash point…nothing to sneeze at.
My family helped us start one to save for our honeymoon next summer. We even got one of those jars that counts the change for you. It’s not really that useful, but fun.
Every year on New Year’s Eve day, I empty my change jar, wrap all the coins and take them to the credit union to deposit in my savings account. The money in that account is used for gifts and vacations (assuming I will ever take one). I have three savings accounts; the other two are for overdraft protection and some home improvements I’m saving up for using Quicken savings goals (they work great!).
I’ve always saved my change and when I was a kid I’d wait until I got to $100 and put it in my savings account. Now I have a seperate jar for each denomination some of which are so large (and I don’t spend money often enough to get change frequently) that I haven’t emptied them yet. I’m really excited to see how much they hold! I expect that when I empty them they’ll go into my high interest online account which is a combination car and retirement fund. I am thinking of declaring one a fun fund since my budget is tight and in the summer it chafes my recreation.
The thing with Coinstar is that they only charge you IF you choose cash….so I save coins all year, use the Coinstar to “buy” Amazon.com gift certificates (for which they do not cahrge you a fee) and buy Christmas presents with them. Amazon sells just about everything so I can usually get most of my shopping done there. The two great things about this plan are no trip to an over crowded mall and because the coins are money I have but never really think about I don’t feel the pinch of spending extra money that time of year!
Our change jar started out as penilty jar when our chldren were young and learning to speak we had to put .05 cents in for every profanity we let by. At the end of the year the children choose which charity it would go to. Now instead of the swear jar it is just the giving jar. The kids have their commissions broken down to three different jars. Spending, giving, and saving. It was an idea we got from our Dave Ramsey Financial Peace university class. We are living like no one else now so we can live like no one else later.
I put my change in a sorter every night and everytime I get $10 or $20 I buy a gift card and put them in a big folder and through out the year I use them for Christmas, Birthdays and sometimes if I am running a little low I can use it also. A couple of other things I do is every 2 wks when I get paid I buy a $5-$10 gift card and add to it so when Christmas or Birthdays, Anniversaries come up it is already paid for. One of my jobs I get paid once a month, I automaticly have $20 go in a savings and $20.00 go in a money market account
which I call my emergency fund cause my Homeowners, Flood Insurance, property taxes all come due in December and I put aside already $165 amonth for all of them together, but living on the coast you never know when you are going to have a large increase in preminues
We call our collected change our rainy day fund. When we have a rainy day we use the change to go to Chuck-E-Cheese. We use the coupons off of the website to help keep the cost down. It makes for a fun day and does not take away from the grocery money.
We save our change for our vacation. In case we want to spend on souvenirs.
We also put change in our kids piggy banks. I plan to put the money in a 529 account.
Glad to see another FPU grad above.
Some references to holidays brought back a memory of what a favorite aunt and uncle used to do with their spare change: they’d give equal portions to myself and my siblings at Christmas time. The change would be in a heavy stocking along with other goodies. It all seemed like big treasure to small kids.
each one of us has his/her own change jar. personally i have 2, one for a home for unwed mothers turned in monthly and one for an annual shopping trip my girls and i take. i just alternate jars daily. it really adds up.
We keep our change jar for those surprise things the kids need to buy at school, and also for field trips the kids have to pay for. Last year, our change jar bought the gas for our family vacation.
as I type this email next to me is a sealed up pepsi bottle full of change which it gets full will be saved for savings bond for me and my two daughters
We have found that one empty mayonnaise jar with change to within 1 inch of the top will give us well over $100.
When we empty your change every day, we have lots of quarters, which add up fast in the jar.
We have a large juice container that we started putting change in for ‘our trip to Maine’. I doubt we will ever get to Maine while the kids are still young - but the money is used for unplanned events. Recently when a local family was burned out of their home (a Grandma raising her 4 young grandchildren) my husband and I took the change and converted it to large bills. We were able to give them about $140 that was sitting there doing nothing. That money was used for more important things than what our needs were!
I do not save change. I use it on a regular basis. This way it isn’t laying around in a jar or container which to me is clutter.
For one year before I got married, I saved all of my change for the wedding. When I got engaged, I cashed it in. I had saved well over a thousand dollars. The cost of the wedding, including food, clothing and the location cost $700 leaving my husband and I with some mad money for the honeymoon.
My family is currently saving change in our piggy bank to go to the local show. When that’s over, we’ll be saving for Christmas. Then probably Easter!
I never use cash, only my debit card. But I also have a hard time trying to put money in my savings account. So everytime I buy something at a place that offers “cash back” I round up to the nearest dollar, and put the change in a jar. Also, on payday, I buy a roll of coins, usually quarters, to put in a change jar. Not to mention all the coins I pick up off the floor. Its a forced savings plan which will go to help pay for Medical school. Ok, maybe only a book or two, but at least its something.