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Special thanks to Coinstar for sponsoring this post on how to quickly turn spare change into holiday spending money.
When I was little I remember my grandpa always telling me that “it all adds up” whenever I would find change on the ground.
I’m not sure if it was because I was lower to the ground or if there was just more of it to be found, but I always had a steady supply of change to add to my piggy bank that I found while walking around. I would carefully collect it all and then I would wait until my parents would bring me home change rolls to put all my coin in. Then I would have to wait again for them to take it to the bank, wait for the bank to count and then deposit it into my account. Then I could finally ask my parents to go back to the bank and withdraw the money for me to use. Phew! I’m tired just thinking about all of that from a kid’s perspective and from my parents’ perspective. I was never a patient person, so I’m sure they grew tired of me asking about my money throughout this process!
Thankfully times have changed since those days. It is now much easier to turn coins into cash!
Now when you find spare change in couch cushions or the junk drawer you can just take it to your local Coinstar® kiosk to get some extra money in the form of cash, or no-fee eGift cards. You can also donate the coins directly to a charity. This is especially helpful during the gift-giving holiday season, when most folks tend to go over their allotted budgets.
Emmy is showing how easy it is to turn a bag of loose change into spendable cash!
We walked into our local store with our bag of coins and then we went straight to the Coinstar Kiosk. We answered a couple of questions and then Emmy poured our bag of coins into the slot and it started to tally up the coins. Less than a minute later we had a total of how much money we would be getting back and it was time to get our cash.
We all made estimates about how much money was in the bag. I thought maybe $10-$15 because it wasn’t a big bag at all. I was so surprised to see that we would be getting $37!
The printout that the kiosk gives you has the breakdown of your transaction and then you just take it up to a cashier and exchange the slip for cash.
It’s that simple! The whole thing took less time than ordering a coffee and totally inspired us to round up all of our spare change. We are even thinking of taking all of the change we have at home to fund a special donation this holiday season to our favorite charity. We have so many ideas after seeing how easy it is to turn our change to cash!
Coinstar also has bright yellow Coinstar Exchange kiosks that offer instant cash for those unwanted gift cards. The kiosks are located in grocery stores in major U.S. cities and accept gift cards from more than 150 retailers. I love that Coinstar can help with unwanted gift cards like this and turning coins easily into dollars!
Learn more about Coinstar and Coinstar™ Exchange and find a local location to turn your spare change or gift cards into much-needed cash this holiday season!
Did you collect change as a child too?
I collected change as a child, and I still collect it today. I LOVE to see that change pile up. LOL
I don’t remember collecting change as a kid, but I do collect it now. I take it out of my wallet and put it in a little piggy bank, which I take to Coinstar when it becomes to full. It’s nice to have the extra cash.
My husband and I love using this machine! So handy and saves us from having to count!
It is amazing how fast spare change can add up! She looks so accomplished with her green bills!
The Coin Star machine does make it easy to turn all that change into cash. We also use it to turn our change into gift cards.
Thank for linking the location finder! My kids really love bringing change to the coin machine (at the bank that is FAR away) before stashing it into savings. I bet that there are other machines around us that I’m just not aware of.
We save up all of our spare change for Coinstar. My kids love hearing it process the money, they get so excited!
My girls love taking their spare change to Coinstar. It’s amazing how fast all that change adds up!
My Dad saved change his whole life. When he finally cashed it in, he had over 3000 dollars. Now he has started again!
The Coinstar machines make life so much easier. No more having to count out coins and put them in sleeves. I collected change as a child and still do as an adult.
This is amazing! A great way to teach kids to save those loose coins they find around the house. Such an awesome machine!
I didn’t know about the gift card option. That is woth exploring more!
My son loves coinstar so very much! And we always take the money that he has saved and give it to our favorite animal rescue! Everyone wins with Coinstar!
We love using these machines, although we’ve never used Coinstar. And how awesome that you can change unwanted gift cards into cash.
When I was younger my mom would always take us to the nearest coinstar to turn in all our coins. It made me realize that in fact every penny counts!
Silvia
This definitely looks like a handy machine.
And you have some very cute pictures.
We have used Coinstar a few times! We usually save a huge jar of change and then cash it in before vacation so we have extra spending money!
What a fun way to get cash for all that loose change!! It sounds so easy to do, I am going to have to gather up our change and see how much we have.
I have seen Coinstar machines but have never tried using it. We have change all around the house and this would be a great way to get the kids to help accumulate it all and cash it in! Now that the holidays are here, they would like some extra cash!
We love Coinstar! I always cash my money in for Amazon gift certificates. Such a great way to cash in all those coins for a nice treat 🙂
Wow! Isn’t this an awesome idea! I really think it’s a also a great way to encourage kids to save especially if you travel a lot!
What a great machine. I love that you can turn gift cards into instant cash.
I really like the idea behind the Coinstar Kiosk! It saves so much time and makes changing the coins into cash much easier.
We love Coin Star! It’s so much fun to feed all our spare change into it. The last time we did it, my son ended up with close to $100! I need to start saving my change again.
We took our spare change a few years ago from our change jars. Then I took it to coinstar to cash it in. It was around $40 by the time I emptyed them.
Oh wow.. this is actually amazing. I wish we have something like this in our country – it would totally be so cool. Haha! I do have super lots of coins here with me!
I used to love using the coin star machines when they first came out. I never seem to have any change anymore though because we usually just use credit cards these days.
Just amazing, I remember collecting changes since childhood and I encourage my kids to do the same as well. The Coinstar machine is really making things easy by getting cash out of those coins so easily. I am going to share this with my kids to motivate them to save more.
How fun! I’ve always loved using CoinStar, such a fun experience to dump all of the change in and watch it sift!
I freaking LOVE coinstar! I remember when I was younger, my mom would empty her purse into a water jug and when the jug was full, I had to roll them all and it was a pain. I do the same emptying method now, then recruit my bf to take it in to coinstar!
I love Coinstar. I love using it with my kids. They think it’s so much fun. We always have spare change around.
We definitely keep all of our change and cash it in. It adds up to way more than you think it would!
I brought my kids to the bank with me this past summer and put our coins in the machine for dollar bills… they loved it!