Prime Rate Credit

I just had my first experience with the Coinstar machines, those machines that take all your change and turn it into money so you can spend it, and I am going to be a Coinstar machine regular from now on, believe me. It’s a very cool concept, and I’m jealous of whoever thought of this, because they have to be rolling in the dough from this unique and most likely highly profitable concept by now!

Here’s how it works. Everyone, almost everyone I know at least, takes their change and kind of throws it somewhere. For me, I have a change compartment in my car which I throw all my change from drive thru’s from fast food in every time I get change, or walk into a corner store to buy something. Then, I have my change I keep in my wallet, which I try to use every now and again, but sometimes it just gets too heavy, and I empty it into my third change-keeping place, my pouch underneath my bathroom sink (weird place, I know, but we have limited space now).

So, over about a year and a half, quite a bit of change has accumulated in this pouch. I finally decided yesterday I would take it to one of these Coinstar machines which you see periodically in grocery stores and other locations where they know you’ll most likely spend it. I found one at a local family owned grocery store online, so I went there with my pouch of pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters.

I dumped a lot of it in a holding area, and periodically, would pull a lever up and put more into the slot when I heard the coin counting slow down a bit. It’s cool, because as it is counting, you see a tally of how much money you are putting in there on a computer screen on the front of the machine. The fee for using this convenient service is 8.9 cents on the dollar, which sure, may be a little bit of money you’re wasting, but in my opinion, since you have to pay for coin rolls anyways, what other way is there to conveniently turn your coins into dollars?

Anyways, you get either a voucher for cash to take to any cashier in the place where the machine resides, or you can choose to make a charitable donation and get a tax deductible receipt for it. I chose this time to take the cash voucher, and I used it toward the groceries I purchased. I had almost fifty dollars in change if you can believe it!

You just never know how much spare change you have lying around, so this is a great service. Heck, you can use it toward that credit card bill you’ve been meaning to pay off if you want!