Yesterday was coin-jar payout day for me. I got $120! Woohoo! And since I took my can to the Penny Arcade at TD Bank, formerly Commerce Bank, they counted my change for free, unlike the Coinstars in supermarkets. Perversely, the past few weeks as my coin jar got close to full , I started to really look forward to getting change, to the extent I started to develop some irrational behavior…
Usually my fiancee and I split things pretty evenly but on a few times I knew I covered a little bit more than my fair share because I knew I would get to keep some change. I opted for a smaller cup of coffee because that was 50 cents in change instead of 25. I even felt slightly miffed for a moment when the bagel guy gave me back a whole dollar instead of making 90 cents in change. I knew the more change I got, the quicker my jar would fill, and the sooner I could take it in.
Chase just changed my WaMu debit card over to one of theirs. The flyer says that there’s a “Case Picks Up The Tab” program where “Your next debit card purchase could be on us!” if you use your debit card as credit, you win a chance to have your next debit purchase be free.
In both cases, people are getting nudged into changing transaction decisions into game decisions. You can’t avoid how games operate on your brain, but you can choose which games you play – the ones that reward behavior you want to curb or the ones that promote behavior you want to encourage. Games are powerful, usurping your normal decision-making process. It’s all a question of whether you use that power for good or for evil!
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Two weeks ago I spent countless hours getting all of my quarters into coin rolls. I ended up with almost $600… I walked into my credit union just to find out that they do not accept coin rolls. I have to use the coin machine they had outside that also charged 6%….boy was I in a bitter mood. I ended up going to Wells Fargo down the street…I wonder if my landlord would of accepted coin rolls??
Banks should always count your money for free, even if it is coin. When I was a bank teller, I loved my customers who brought in big jars or bags of coins. (At least, as long as it was a jar that was easy to pour coins out of quickly.)
I hated the folks who rolled coins, because we just had to break them all open again and run it through the coin sorter, and the customer invariably got pissed about that. (But how else do you make sure there’s no sneaky Canadian coins or blanks in the middle of the roll?)
My bucket holds a good $300 in change and I fill it 3-4 times a year ^_^
I did not read the entire thread so I do not know if this has been mentioned. They did a study once in the area I live (Tennessee) and dicovered that a large amount of these machines were rigged to count wrong. I forget the exact numbers but it was on average 10 to 20 percent taken above the charge rate. Just thought I would warn everybody that this may be another reason to trust your bank. In my experience also they may not want to but the bank is required to use their machines to count your change if you ask. Good luck ot there.
@ GianniAbadon: Here’s hoping that that won’t be one of the victims of Chevy Chase’s absorption into (*sob*) Capital One.
$120…pfft lightweight. last november coinstar had the cash in $40 in change to an amazon gift cert, get another $10 gift cert via rebate. i cashed in 219.xx in change my mom gave me from a 3 gallon golfish bowl. i had to carry all of the change in a canvas bag with a few shoeboxes full of change.
Our local banks don’t take coins (wrapped or otherwise), even if you have an account.
One, TD, does have a machine that is available to customers and non-customers alike.
The CoinStar machines are total ripoffs.
The biggest issue I have is the accuracy of these machines. They’re great at spitting out foreign coins that are mixed in (We get a lot of those in change here in NYC.) but I once had exactly $40 in quarters and it came up less. Since I counted, I knew it was accurate but had no way to dispute it with the bank.
Once the coins are in the machine, that’s it.
I’d be thrilled if there was a way to use a card (BUT not connected to your personal bank account) as cash, anonymously, for everything. Of course, then you have the problem with returns, etc. and no way to get credited back.
Ugh. Keeping change (for tolls, laundry, vending machines, etc.) is a hassle.
We have been doing this for about 4 years now. We even bought a new computer once with our spare change!
All the change goes into a big tin until we need it for something and then it goes to the beloved coinstar.
Right now we are saving all of our change, five dollar bills and about 2/3 of our ones to start a business.
It’s funny how little we miss it once it’s put away.
I work at a local Milwaukee bank, and we charge a fee to non-customers, and free to customers. Rolling your own coin is a waste of time, we’ll just break it into the coin machine… too easy to be shorted that way. They’re has also been rumors of people rolling their own coin with fake fillers in the middle to get free cash…
Is your coin jar a former house for a bottle of Laphroaig scotch? Just curious… looks very similar. If so, excellent taste, Mr. Popken!
How accurate are those machines? Didn’t Ben do an experiment with these machines once?
I roll my change.
I bought a 4 column coin sorter at Longs years ago and it works great.
Each column is the size of a standard coin roll. The values are marked on the sides. No hand counting at all. As each column is filled to the top I just transfer the coins to a wrapper. When I have about $20 collected I generally take it into the bank and get bills. Except quarters which I hoard for laundry purposes.
Well the way that the coin are counted is low and high tech. One disc spins the coins to the edges of the disc, then the coins pass underneath a sensor bar that rejects coins that are not size and/or height. After that the coins just fall into the appropriate slot (smallest is dimes, smaller is penny, small is nickels, etc); the slots have a sensor that counts each coin.
Oh and the Penny Arcade is free for everybody. And you get a prize if you can guess correctly the amount of coins you have.