In the last few years Coinstar machines have moved from relative obscurity to being ubiquitous in just about every grocery store and mall. These machines convert your random collection of change into paper bills or gift certificates, but done so at a fee. It’s free if you turn the money into a gift certificate, but if you want cash, you’re going to have to pay an 8.9% fee, and who wants to do that? Don’t worry, there are ways you can turn your loose change into paper money without ever actually having to pay.
Your Local Bank – Pretty much every bank has one of those really nifty coin counting machines. Just take your change in a nice big jar and tell them you want to deposit it. They’ll take your change to the back and run it through the machine. The machine will tell the teller how much money was in there, and they will deposit the money into your account. The best part is that they’ll do it for absolutely free, and then the money is in your checking account to spend as you please.
Game the Coinstar Machine – Coinstar probably won’t want you to do this, but there’s a way that you can use the Coinstar machine and getting cash without paying the whopping 8.9% fee. Follow the normal instructions and pick out an iTunes gift card. After all of your change is counted, it will ask you how much you want in iTunes and how much in cash. Say that you want all the money on the gift card, but before proceeding pull the telephone jack out of the wall so that the transaction can’t finish. The machine will try to connect and fail, and then give you all of your money without any sort of fee. It’s not entirely ethical, but if you’re okay with it, it’s an easy way to avoid the fee.
Sell the Gift Certificate – A lot of different countries can’t use Apple’s iTunes, so instead they buy iTunes gift cards on eBay and use those to purchase music. You could probably sell a gift certificate to Amazon or iTunes for near face value and pocket the cash. You probably won’t get all of your money back, but you’ll probably be making more than if you had just paid the fee to convert your money to cash.
Use The Self Checkout Line – Instead of making a cashier count all of your useless change, you could use it to pay for items at Wal-Mart, Costco, or any other store with a self-checkout line. It might take ten minutes to feed the machine all of your change, but it won’t complain or give you dirty looks for doing so.
There are plenty of great ways to make better use of your change without getting hit by a 9% fee to Coinstar. Don’t let your spare change go to waste, it might not seem like a lot, but over time it adds up to be quite a bit of money.
