Use your coin jar to buy gift cards with Coinstar (with no fee)

LeAnn's practical demonstration of "a penny saved is a penny earned":

One of my favorite holiday hacks is to use my coin jar to buy Christmas gifts.  Our coin jar amasses quite a few coins by the end of each year, but I'm too lazy/busy to roll them up and take them to the bank. Instead, I take the jar to a Coinstar machine (there's one at a grocery store in town) and cash it in for gift certificates. Coinstar charges a fee to turn your coins in for cash, but turning them in for gift certificates is free!

Coinstar has a bunch of retailers to choose from -- Amazon, Gap, ITunes, and more! (The Coinstar website contains a full listing of participating retailers.) I usually end up with at least $100 for Amazon, which covers a nice chunk of my Christmas shopping.

Brilliant. This hack is also great for kids and their piggy banks.

Related: Stick to your budget by paying with gift cards

Comments

[Miz Loo]

Brilliant. My go-to grocery has CoinStar, which I've never used because of the fee. My Credit Union has a free coin counter, but not at my local branch.

Also, if I turn the coins into a card for something I use, it sequesters the $ from the general budget. At the CrUn, I always put the $ into my savings account, where it just looks like any other money.

Thanks for the tip1

[Michelle]

The CoinStars around us... NEVER WORK (<--- not an exaggeration). Or, the GC option is broke and you can only turn your coins in for a voucher (with the service charge). I found out about this a few years ago and think that it is a brilliant idea, but I decided that CoinStar was up to no good when the machines in my area never work for the 'no service charge' part.

[Krys]

My local bank branch still allows people to bring in their coin jars, and doesn't charge a fee, so I haven't run into this issue yet. Good to know it's an option, though - since banks seem to take away more services every day!

[Andy]

Also, look through your old coins before swapping them out. Dimes, Quaters and Half Dollars from 1964 or older are 90% silver and have material value greater than their monetary face value.