We don't have saved pennies, but I do have a jar on the counter for spare change. It's about the same size as a Mason jar. My credit union has a coin counter machine for free. About once or twice a year, the jar fills up and I cash it in. It is usually around $75.00. Found money!

No banks take rolled coins now. They will take loose coins but they send them out to places like coinstar. Not sure if there's a charge.

I have a jar of pennies. They're completely worthless in Canada now, but I had to keep them. I could have cashed them in a few years ago, but then my teddy bear Kraft peanut butter jar would be empty...…...

Coinstar has a number of options that give you 100% value of a gift card or a credit. I save almost all my change and then I take credit to apply to my Amazon purchases, But you can get gift cards to lots of businesses, or even make a charitable contribution, all at 100%..

When my dad passed away he had a large metal milk can filled with pennies. You couldn't even lift it. That was before coinstar. We had to roll every freaken penny by hand. And my husband being a penny collector of course had to go through every single penny. .

Here coinstar only had two options Amazon gift card which I selected and taking a discount and getting cash. You can check what they will do in your area by going to the coinstar website. My husband's credit union will no longer accept large amounts of coins and has done away with their coin counter. Pay attention to the warning that heat, light and time will quickly cause the slip that the machine spews out to fade because it will. If you buy a lot from Amazon I would select that and also set up a Coinstar account and use it to sign on just in case your slip does fade.

So far I have no problem with this companies slip fading but I have had other slips and receipts fade over time. One as little as 2 months.

I have a big container of pennies. There's a bank nearby that has a coin counting machine you can use for free. It's just kind of embarrassing to stand there pouring tons of pennies into it, but I've got to do it one day soon.

My bank only takes rolled coins. I loved when they had a coin counter.

Mailfleur, I don't understand what you mean about a slip fading? I plan to get the cash the same day. If I recall, I did do this once, we got a slip and then got the cash at customer service.

Be aware that certain locations no longer offer eGift Cards.

From their site:The NO FEE eGift Card option may be temporarily unavailable at: Kroger, Dillon Food Stores, Food 4 Less, Fred Meyer, Fry’s Food Stores, Jay C Food Store, King Soopers, Ralphs Grocery, Smith’s Food & Drug, Quality Food Centers, and Ruler Foods.

The Coinstars I've seen also had Starbuck's, Barnes & Noble, Sears, REI and others.

The slip for Amazon credit is a heat-ink slip with a code on it that you meter onto your Amazon account for the credit. I guess that sort of register paper will fade. Why hold onto it? A mayo jarful of assorted change gets me $75 to $90.

Egads! I’m lucky my bank still accepts rolled coins. I also have a piggy back that can hold about $75 of change. I exchange for $ and use.

We have a canister that originally held candy. It is now used for pennies and when full contains $10. We roll the pennies and take them to our bank which takes them. Well, we did until our bank branch closed in December. Not sure where we will take them now. I'm thinking I'll take them to the bank where I have an account for my jewelry business. If they don't take them, then off to the nearest coin counting machine, I will go.

>> No banks take rolled coins now.

Mine does.

If you are concerned about a slip fading you can copy it. I did that with an appliance receipt from Home Depot

As previously noted, just cash at 85% or Amazon at 100 % here. My bank ditched its coin machine, saying customers complained of the noise. The Coinstar machine at the market serves my needs, I go for the Amazon credit. No need for anything more. Why hoard coins?

Good question. DH just started collecting them. We have them in the basement, so out of the way.

Although I shop at Amazon on occasion, we are not members. I think I read that at the local ones here it's an 11 percent fee. But, I'll see when I actually do it.

eld6161 the slips are printed on a thick type of what used to be called NCR paper. When exposed to heat, moisture, or even as it ages the paper either turns entirely black or the print on the paper simply fades. As suggested above you can copy it but since some might simply leave it in their car or on their seat my statement was a warning not to do that. If you get cash immediately this will not concern you. However if your machine would give you gift card numbers either for Amazon or other things you need to protect the slip.

The jar I took yielded over $100. I have a whole lot more to turn in, several coffee cans, jars, boxes etc. but will be doing it gradually as I need something from Amazon. I am too greedy to turn it in for cash and loose that much of my hard earned savings. I just looked and now on their website it again mentions Starbucks which was not offered at the machine I used nor was it listed on the website the last time I looked. We have so many coffee roasters and shops here that are better than Starbucks that I would probably never use that one. The machine did mention that you could sign up for an account and if you lost the gift receipt they might be able to find it that way.

Why hoard coins?

Well, in my case, it's guilt free money for the slot machines.

After my mom passed and I was cleaning out her house, I found Pringle potato chip cans full of pennies and other cans of dimes, nickels, quarters. At Thanksgiving dinner I gave the three with pennies to my two great nephews and niece. After dinner we all helped count the containers of pennies and each ended up with the same amount - $13! ha Apparently she had done the penny thing before and gifted them to the kids so they kind of knew what to expect. I kept the other cans and still have them.

You never know when those hoards of coins will come in handy. I used to buy groceries with mine or they even helped with gas for the car when I was working.

I have a Winnie the pooh jar on my counter for my spare change. When my purse gets weighed down with all the loose coins at the bottom,I get them out and put it in the jar. A few years ago I got SO one of those cups that counts the change as you put it in the top. He really likes being able to keep track of it. An extra 100 bucks or so can really come in handy. I use the coin counter at either one of the two credit unions i bank at. It's free. Love my pooh jar.....

Graywings made me laugh. I went through Wendy's drive thru the other day. The bill as $6.13. I handed her $6.13. (A five, a one, a dime, and three pennies.) She stared at the cash in her hand, then looked at me like I had two heads. LOL

I throw quarters into a coffee jug. It's right around $300.00 when it gets full. Take it to the bank, they throw it into the machine and give me my money.

We throw the pennies in the containers in the basement. Those are the ones I am going through and sorting.

Then, we have a bowl in our bedroom where we toss only quarters. These we can grab when we know we have to use meters. I put the other coins in another container in my office. This one is slow to gather as we really don't have that much change.

We have a really tall wine like decor bottle that is about 3/4 full of all kinds of change. It’s in the guest room and I use it as a door stop when the windows are open. I haven’t thought about cashing in the coin but maybe it’s time that I did.

I like reading all these stories about saving change. With more and more people using debit and credit, hardly anyone uses cash. We still use cash for our shopping, and you obviously do as well.

As a kid, on our birthday Nan would bring out her plastic barrel (about the size of a Folgers container) that she kept her pennies in. We'd put our hand in and pull out as many pennies as we could, and keep them. What fun!

It wasn't long before my brother would learn to put his hand in open, underneath the pennies and lift his hand up. Much more than a fist-full.

I throw my change into a jar. Most now comes from purchases that in my mind are too small to use my card. I do keep a separate jar for quarters as I like to wash my blankets when the season changes. I could cram one comforter into my machines but I would rather put more into one and get them all done at one time. What I mostly have is my husband's change that I need to get rid of.

I used coin star and got $34. For some reason I got all 100% back even though I got it in cash?

Our credit union has a counter. You can then take the receipt to a teller and deposit the money into your account at 100% of value, or take cash (stupid) and get 85% of value. Even if we eventually want the cash, we deposit and then take cash out later.

We have never saved loose change. It just gets used as it accumulates -- which is seldom in this day of CC's. I pass my coins along to DH; he's the one confounding a cashier.

It's interesting to look a coins in Hawaii. With a 4% tax on *everything*, there are more 'cash only' places, and you'll see some really *OLD* currency. Some it it looks like it had been buried for a century.

I don't understand the 'found money' concept with this any more than I understood the non-interest-bearing "Christmas Accounts" at a bank. It's always *your money* -- in a jar or being spent.

We just throw the lose change into a mug on the dresser. When the grand-kids are all together we just split it up among them. We are happy to get rid of it and the kids are happy to get candy money.

I have a friend who saves found money....like pennies in parking lots or whatever. He puts them in coffee cans....starting a new can every year. At the end of the year, he puts the can in a closet and starts another one. He doesn't even count it. It isn't just pennies, he has all kinds of change and bills. He goes to the Texas City dike every day and lots of people fish there and drop money. He said he finds it every day. Needless to say, he is a very quirky guy, retired, has time on his hands and doesn't need money.

I save coins that I find in my husband's pockets when doing laundry and change that is left laying around. I take it to Coinstar and usually have about $35.

Never heard that a bank where you have an account (accounts) wouldn't take your change. Just put it (throw?) it down at the window and tell them you have a deposit. We take coins in regularly (from the kids piggy banks), and they

never bat an eye and give us full worth for them. They do have a counter, but

they put them in, not the customers. Big Credit Union, but still?

Uptown and others times are changing. While banks. credit unions, etc. may now take coins some are no longer accepting them and you need to be aware of this.

Well, I mentioned cashing in the coin to my DH and now he’s busy thinking about what kind of trouble we can get into with it. It’s more silver and has at least $100 in there, if not more. Some fun chump change for a day drive or something. It just dawned on me too that we’ve had our jar since we married 19 years ago and I may have had it before then!

For those with silver coins you might want to see if there is a lapidary or jewelry making shop in your area. Contrary to all the stories about wheat pennies and silver coins being of extra value unless that coin has never been in circulation or is very, very rare there is no real market for them that will earn you more than face value. If they are old copper or silver the value is in the metal after it is melted down. Silver is now $14.08 per troy ounce and copper is $2.61 a pound. The pennies before 1982 were 142 for a pound.

My bank still takes rolled coins too. I take them in about once a year.

No banks take rolled coins now.

That's not true. We gathered all our saved coins a few years ago and cashed in. Rolling wasn't a big deal. Wasn't about to give someone else a cut after all those years of saving.

I used to have to write my name and address on each roll of pennies I took to the bank. The last time, which was quite awhile ago, I didn't need to. Sometimes I'm sure I missed a penny or even a dime got in there accidentally.

My husband and granddaughter would roll coins when she was very small. Her times tables got started early that way and afterward, we would take her to the bank to deposit in her account. They loved doing this together. Her mother didn't like it too much as coins are somewhat dirty.

To Debbie:

Keep those Canadian pennies. Since these are not minted anymore, those should become collector items in a few years. As the years roll be, these will become more scarce. The more rare these become, the more expensive they will become. Of course, there is no way to predict when these will become valuable.

Around here they apparently were getting too many fake coins in the rolled coins and just stopped taking them. A friend of mine rolled coins for hours, took them to the bank and was told sorry no we dont take them rolled. She had to unroll them so they could put them in the machine. My husband saves quarters. He had a brief case full. After the flood we had to search for it. Didn't want it thrown out. They did throw out quite a bit of my money though. I had a decorative box that contained all the state quarters in multiples. They threw it out. I had a gallon jug of nickels for our antique slot machine, they threw it out!

When my basement flooded last year I was warned before hand if there was anything I did not want to be tossed to tell the crew. My crew was very good about asking if I wanted to keep some things. When I used the coinstar there were about five assorted coins that it would not accept.

We have 4 different small containers around the house as part of the 'decor' that we drop excess change into. I just dropped 3 pennies into the one on this desk, and found that the lid wont quite seat into place now. Too full!

An Uncle who passed away a few years ago had in his basement a 10 gallon milk can 3/4 full of change collected over all his working years. No way anyone could pick it up to move it. His kids hauled the coins up from the basement little by little. I never did hear about how much was in the haul.

jemdandy, I also have 3 rolls of brand new pennies made the last year they were made.

Maifleur....just took about 60$ in change from the kids piggy bank....Credit Union, as usual, took it and gave us the cash. I am aware of that. If you have

a bad service bank, maybe you should look around. ( And, along with that, we

got a nice pleasant chat and a giggle over a mild joke.)

We have a special bank that we put pennies in. DD's elementary school did "penny wars" twice a year to raise money for school functions. (Penny wars is copper minus silver for a tally). DD also got rid of a lot of my nickles and dimes "warring." Not sure what we will do now, I don't think the new school does anything like that.

I'll probably go back to getting Amazon money at the coinstar, even though we don't buy much from Amazon- it's not hard to make an order of things you need. I've thought of doing the coinstar charity donation, but not sure I'm feeling any of the charities that are on the machines.

Update: My first haul was all of $24.75. I filled only half of my Tupperware as it seemed heavy to carry. I had DH help me.

Now this bowl is almost filled so I am guessing triple the amount.

It's funny but after saving all these years I don't think it will amount to even $500! But, we'll see.

I haven't checked lately, but a year or so ago the Coinstars in our grocery stores charged about 11%, and one took the slip to the cashier to receive credit on checking out. Don't know about getting 100% when used for certain purposes.

A couple of years ago I saw a man putting a substantial amount of money into the Coinstar in the grocery, and told him that he was paying about 11%, as much as a bank pays on accounts, etc. over several years, but he more or less shrugged his shoulders.

He had a lad of about 6 or 8 with him, and I suggested that he might well choose to give the coins to the kid to roll, and they'd split the fee that Coinstar takes, to get the kid launched on the idea of the value of money and its management.

Last I heard, banks and credit unions around here accept rolled coins.

ole joyful