saving loose change (merged)

sideboards

I maybe wrong but the last time I used one of these counters one of the questions that you are asked to answer on screen was to which CHARITY you would like the % charge to go towards.........I think it listed 3 and you just touched the touch screen to make your choice...........

By the sounds of it this doesn't apply to all but I thought that it was a good service really as it spat out my receipt for £81 and it was almost all coppers.....

nelly_2

These days they are a waste of space, I'd be quite happy for items to be rounded up or down to the closest 5 pence. (although I think I know which way most shops would do the rounding and its not down)

quoia

sideboards wrote:

I maybe wrong but the last time I used one of these counters one of the questions that you are asked to answer on screen was to which CHARITY you would like the % charge to go towards.........I think it listed 3 and you just touched the touch screen to make your choice...........

It does ask about making a DONATION to CHARITY ....

BUT IT IS NOT THE 7.5% FEE THAT THEY CHARGE TO COUNT IT !!!

The "donation" is the 92.5% that is left !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The question is asking whether YOU WANT TO DONATE YOUR MONEY - NOT THEIRS !

sunflower_2

quoia wrote:

It does ask about making a DONATION to CHARITY ....

BUT IT IS NOT THE 7.5% FEE THAT THEY CHARGE TO COUNT IT !!!

The "donation" is the 92.5% that is left !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The question is asking whether YOU WANT TO DONATE YOUR MONEY - NOT THEIRS !

indeed !
maybe if you choose to donate to charity they should also donate their fee..?

i must say that my son uses the coinstar quite regularly - i pop anything under a 50p coin into a jar and he takes it to the coinstar everyso often
he loves it !

so i am all in favour of them
they must be an expensive bit of machinery, and they run on electricity, and they need to be emptied quite often by a bloke who needs to be paid, and will prob need a van that someone needs to pay for and pay to keep on the road, and then someone has to bank the money and prob pay a fee to the bank for the sheer amount of coinage

suppose what i am saying is that its not a bad price to pay for the convenience of it all

especially considering the amount some ATMs charge to take out as little as £10

nicki_2

I just wait until I have a cheque to pay in or my daughters piggy bank is full, then we both sit and sort out the money, bag up what we can and then we make an afternoon of going to the bank and then the library. Once every 3 months (unless I am eBaying and therefore have cheques I have to deposit ASAP) is more than enough for me, especially as it costs me £1.10 each way in bus fare!

Josie_Jump_3

condyk wrote:

All those people could be wrong ... or maybe they have better things to do!Personally, I too have neither time nor inclination to count coins, put them in bags, drive to my bank, stand in line, etc. I'm also not selfish enough to force people behind me to wait while the cashier checks it all.

The coin counters are a great service for people who CHOOSE to pay a reasonable charge for a valuable, time/hassle saving service. If you prefer to count coins and save some money then that's your choice too.

Too right !

nickinoo

I think the machines are great, I really can't see the problem with using them.

scheming_gypsy

condyk wrote:

All those people could be wrong ... or maybe they have better things to do!Personally, I too have neither time nor inclination to count coins, put them in bags, drive to my bank, stand in line, etc. I'm also not selfish enough to force people behind me to wait while the cashier checks it all.

The coin counters are a great service for people who CHOOSE to pay a reasonable charge for a valuable, time/hassle saving service. If you prefer to count coins and save some money then that's your choice too.

spot on.. i recently had around £300 in change and paid a mate a fiver to take it to asda for me.. on the voucher there was over 600 20p pieces so it's a small price to pay instead of counting it all and bagging it and then dragging it to the bank while everybody behind me thinks of ways to kill me for wasting their time.

quoia

scheming_gypsy wrote:

spot on.. i recently had around £300 in change and paid a mate a fiver to take it to asda for me.. on the voucher there was over 600 20p pieces so it's a small price to pay instead of counting it all and bagging it and then dragging it to the bank while everybody behind me thinks of ways to kill me for wasting their time.

So you easily turned £300 into £272.50 without really a second thought.

You appear to have money to burn and I can't quite see the point of you wasting your time on a site like MSE looking for a bargain where you might save a few pounds, when you haven't got time to count a few coins.

In order to earn the £27.50 you so rapidly discarded, assuming you pay taxes and NI at the normal rate, you'd have to gross about £40. (Nearer £50 if you are a higher rate tax payer)

That's like getting paid £20 to £30 an hour for the time it would take you to do it all through a bank.

The last time I did this was after a month long charity collection at my local pub.
I collected the appropriate bags from the first bank I found myself near to (within a minute or so) without making a special journey.
Took under 5 minutes to obtain as many as I needed.
It was a 2 gallon bucket that was almost full to the brim but it only took an hour and a half to sort and bag up.
£493 and 72 pence if I remember correctly - nothing over a 20p piece.

I knew that I'd be taking it to my bank, a branch of NatWest, but waited until I had some cheques to pay in. Get these fairly frequently from send away Try Me Free & Money back offers or similar so I didn't have to make a special journey just for the coins.

Branch had no problems taking them and the whole deposit took about 10 minutes. When I told them what I needed to deposit they even opened up another counter position so that it would not inconvenience others.
Overall less than 2 hours of my time to bank almost £500 in coins.
Would still have taken me an hour or more of my time to use the machine at ASDA and they'd have charged me almost £40 for the priviledge.

Only the other day in ASDA, whilst I was being served by customer services, I witnessed 2 individuals spend about 15 minutes feeding the CoinStar a quantity of coins that eventually totalled UNDER £80. It rejected quite a few and these had to be put in the hopper a 2nd time and then 3rd time etc..etc.. until most had been consumed. At the end they still had a few coins that it had no intention of accepting.

Tony_H_3

These are perfect for weighing coinage, perfect result's every time.... But they appear to be a tad expensive!! £55.00 .....oO(I picked mine up from staples for £22.00)

Ironically Salter have modified the look of this scale and named it "Kitchen Scales" and can be purchased for as little as £17.00 from the Range it has an identical spec eg 0-1kg in 1g increments & 1-2kg in 2g increments.

Infact ARGOS have them in for £19.99 & I bet if you look around on here long enough your just bound to find some form of an argos discount code to get 'em even cheaper......