About to cash in your change jar? Read this first.

Not too long ago I decided it was time to cash in the change that I had been saving in a jar for the past few years. Brea and I had just replace our desktop computer, so I figured we could use the extra money. I wasn’t too excited about this process, because the last time we cashed in our change it involved first wrapping all the coins before taking them to the bank. I did not want to this again.

I decided that I was going to take the coins to a coin counting machine that I knew was at a local grocery store. There was going to be a service charge, but I was willing to pay the money to save the time and effort it was going to take to wrap the coins. When I went to the grocery store the coin machine was out of order. At first I was upset, but it turned out that this was a blessing in disguise.

While driving around trying to figure out what to do next I drove by a Century Bank and remembered that I had seen something about them having a coin counter. This turned out to being one of the best investments I have ever made. Century Bank does not charge a service fee for using their coin counter. On top of that, they will give you $50 for opening a free checking account with a minimum $100 deposit.

I had about $300 in coins saved up, so here’s the math:

Coin Star: $300 in coins – 8.9 cents service charge per $1 = $273
Century Bank: $300 in coins + $50 for opening accound = $350
Difference = $77 or about 28% increase

That’s good money. If you happen to decide to open an account after reading this, please mention that you heard about it from me (Kevin Rossen). They give a $25 credit for every person you refer to them, so that little out of order machine might end up making me even more money.

One thought on “About to cash in your change jar? Read this first.

  1. Also be sure to double or even triple bag your coins. I learned this the hard way when the bottom fell out of my bag of coins in the Tom Thumb parking lot as I was transferring it to a cart. Luckily, the cart boy was there to help me gather all my coins into new bags.

    I had over $500 in coins.

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