a while back there was a thread, or a post on a thread, or maybe it was just something Emma Watson said in a dream i had. but somone was talking about saving all their 5 dollar notes they had in a jar and how much it really adds up after a while. i had alot of coins laying around and i could never really get enough fiat together to make any medium to larger PM purchases. so starting 10 months ago, i gave it a shot. every savings jar/piggy bank ive ever had has been smashed open after 2 weeks if i knew there was $5 in there and i just wanted it back. so i went to bunnings and bought something strong enough to keep me from stealing my own money. for $20 i bought this small safe box. i drilled a coin slot in the top, locked it and gave one set of keys to my sister, who i trust (she didnt know what the key was for and lives far away) and i threw away the other set. i told her to never give the keys back even if i begged for them, until a year had past. she agreed and i got straight to stacking that fiat. any loose change and $5 notes from after a days shopping, coins from my car, wallet, whatever. then i started putting in some money i wouldnt miss that much 10s and 20s not that many though. just yesterday, about 10 months in, the box was completly full. i called my sister up and she agreed to give me the key back after i begged and pleaded by saying 'hay, can i have that key back?". got the key, gave my sister an ear full for so easily giving me the key back 2 months early ( same key new sister next time). for weeks prior to opening it i was telling the misses that "there must be at least $450 dollars in there, it wouldnt be more than $650 though".. but last night, we found out all this was in there.. a total of $1774.30 in spare change including 101 $5 notes way off my best estimate. the crap thing is i opened it with the misses, so i might not be able to spend it on silver ..we will see.. so if your having trouble saving or just want to open up a very suprising present for your self in a years time. saving small change and all your $5 really adds up after a while and u wont even miss it. i also found these in the pile being traded as AUD 2x american quarters, a NZ 5c, a 1976 franc and Brunei 10 sen. TIPS. if your gona do something like this. dont put it on a high shelf u might hurt your shoulder getting it down (no, i dont even lift bro) and dont empty and then then try to count your coins on a thick shag pile carpet.
A nice little reward at the end of the year. Plus you managed to dump out all your loose change. Every gold coin I got in change I put into a piggy bank, after a year my wife found the piggy bank and I got an earful for having so much money sitting in a piggy bank. Now it is empty. I can always tell if she has been near the new piggy bank because she takes the $2 coins first and when they run out she takes all the $1 coins. If I open it up and all the 50 cent coins are gone I know she is desperate. I really should get a lock on it.
Good job ego ive been saving my small change for decades & always having enough to pay the power & phone bills when they come & never having to dip into my every day money .I didnt have to buy a locked box & give the key away though . I put it aside & just use the money to pay bills comforted by the fact that i never have to get the money together to pay bills its always there. Ive even payed my car rego a few times out of the bills stack . clawhammer is the $5 note king
Nice! May have been myself that suggested that on here. Used to only save the coins but that now that has extended to $5's and $10's too. Real nice stack of them to keep for a rainy day. Or $6 silver :lol: Usually around $1,500 worth to cash in so great way to have some emergency cash lying around. Used to count and seperate the change for bank lodgement but now dump it all in a sorting machine.
It's amazing how effective this is. I've been doing it unwittingly (bar the notes) by chucking any change I get into the center console of my car because I hate having it in my pockets. Not long ago I noticed it was getting pretty full and thought it could have amounted to a couple of hundred dollars so I cashed it in, only to find out I'd been driving around with nearly a grand worth of shrapnel in there.
I did the loose change thing a while back. It was OK, but the coin redemption machine 10% fee was a put-off and so was sorting and rolling all those coins to avoid the fee. Now I just stick $1 to $5 in bills into a jar every day. The payoff isn't as dramatic and there are never any interesting foreign or silver coins, but it's a lot quicker and easier to handle when I cash out.
We have free machines in the bank, you pour it into the machine and it credits your account and spits out all the foreign coins. My mother-in-law took an accumulation of $1 coins to Coles and when she went to pay she was told that they didn't have to accept over a certain amount in coins. She wasn't doing the weekly shop, just bread, milk and tomatoes. She asked if they were going to enforce that rule but they didn't want to, they were just letting her know. Customer service at its best, I am guessing they had just shown them a training film or something similar and the checkout operator was excited to have retained a fact in her head and found an opportunity to use it.
Awesome effort 'ego' P.S. It was Napthalene Man who kicked it off...I'm just a wannabe compared to him Plus Mudgekko saves coins in a 9 litre bucket from memory. http://forums.silverstackers.com/topic-31328-australian-wallets-stuffed-with-cash-page-1.html
I've tried saving my change also but I end up doing the same thing. We have casinos hear that will cash in your coins at no charge and give you some free drinks ontop so its too hard to not cash it in when I see it buidling up. I understand this is a nice bonus and feels like found money, but couln't you just use the small bills during your normal shopping and youd have that 1700 in your bank acount
I envy you that. I'm in the NE US and they haven't been free for some time. The bank machines here credit your account after deducting the fee. Enjoy it while you've go it---I'm sure your banks will catch on and follow the stellar example set by the money-grubbing US banks. I spent hours sorting and rolling those dirty old coins to avoid paying the machine fee. Lowest hourly wage I worked for in decades. Never again. Ever since back then---bills only for me. Easy to store, easy to count and effortless to cash in.
well done ego, A few years ago when I was married with a couple of rugrats my mate lost my dinghy up at Ningaloo. It cost me $2k and I did not have enough cash to buy another one. So I bought one of those big money tins and told the family that no $2 coins are to leave the house. So the kids got no $2 coins for lunch money, mine from the pub went in the tin, the missus $2 coins from shopping etc. 10 months later we were getting ready for our annual trip to Ningaloo so I cut open the tin and found I had over $1800 in there. Bingo another $200 from my pocket and a new dingy for our trip. No I never lent that dingy out again. Cheers Rick
