I don’t know about you but I have acquired a good deal of change over the last few years that I don’t ever use. When heading out for the day, its easier, and lighter, to put a few ones in my pocket than a few hundred pennies. Usually the change I have at the end of the day goes in one of two types of storage containers: a bowl/bucket/pot, or some flat surface. For the flat surface the floor under the bed works really well: its really big and its “outta sight outta mind”. In fact, every move over the last few years I have made has included a procedure of gathering loose change and pouring it into a big glass milk bottle that I then seal up with packing tape. This bottle has gotten very heavy recently and the other containers I use add up to dozens of pounds.

A while ago my dad mentioned he went to the Coinstar machine near his home with some change and said it was amazing. Yeah, its just a coin counting machine, but its so damned easy. I think he mentioned this because they have stayed at most of my apartments and seen the money I leave on the floor. In fact, my dad seems to make a point of letting me know when he finds a quarter in the living room as he drops it in his pocket. So going to one of those machines myself has been on my list for a while but so have a lot of other things. One of the things that get me back was their fee: 8.9%. For 8.9% I can roll quarters myself. But as I was prepping for this move to Amsterdam I surveyed the work ahead of me and decided I should just get it done.

Looking at the Coinstar web site I saw they now offer gift cards with no fee. So you can get a gift certificate at the useless foo foo store, Pier 1, but I don’t need more crap to carry across the oceans. You can also get a Starbucks card, but that is only accepted in North America. I think there were some other useless choices too. But then I recently saw that you can get an Amazon.com gift certificate at no cost. So I took my buckets of change round to the Coinstar at the Fulton Market. They make it brain dead simple. Pick the way you want to get your money, then pour money into this tray with holes at the bottom. The holes are too small for any US currency, but plenty big for all the nails and screws that were also in the bucket. Lift the tray and push the change into the feeder with your fingers. There is no fear of nasty finger crushing so this is easy. Then you watch the counters rack up. The screen shows how many pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters, half dollars, and dollar coins you have.

I got excited when the counters got up to 50 bucks. I got more excited when I went over the 100 dollar mark. I was beaming at 150 dollars. When the final total reached 175 I felt a mixture of anger and delight as I realized this had just been sitting on my floor for ages. At the end I got my receipt with a Amazon Gift Certificate number I can use for anything I want. This just rocks!! Of course if you are the kind of person that likes to avoid attention, don’t do this. The machine does not suck down coins discreetly. It makes an awful racket that can be heard for several aisles. I had kids coming up to me asking their parents if they could play. But all of this was a load of fun for me and I am looking forward to a time when I can gather another 5 or so years of change…