I drove over to the grocery store this afternoon to pick up a few remaining items for tonight’s recipe. On my way out the door I grabbed my coin-filled piggy bank from the dresser. I decided to cash in on Coinstar’s $10 holiday bonus while I was out. When I arrived at the grocery store I walked straight over to the Coinstar machine and started unloading my coins. I cashed in a little over $40 worth. I checked and double checked the machine before stepping away. I’m always afraid I’ll leave my wallet or cell phone behind. It’s a good thing I double checked because quite a bit of change had been rejected by the machine. I gathered at least two or three dollars worth.
I scooped up the change and started grocery shopping. I only needed two items for dinner, but I decided to pick up two or three sale items while I was there. The grocery store was practically empty at 12:30 on a Thursday afternoon. I took my items over to the self-pay register and decided to pay with the remaining change in my piggy bank. This seemed like a relatively good idea at the time, but as I stood there dropping coin after coin into the self pay machines I began to rethink that idea. Luckily I only had $12 worth of items, otherwise I would have been standing there for a long time feeding coins into the machine.
I stopped by CVS on my way home from the grocery store. I picked up a few items with expiring ECBs. The cashier at CVS is extremely nice to me. He always jokes about my wad of coupons and always says I’ll see you next week when the register spits out an ECB. My total at CVS was less than $1 so I paid again with coins.
I typically use a credit card to pay for items, even the smallest of transactions, so it always feels strange to me to pay with cash and coins. Although we pay off our credit card every month it still felt nice to pay with cash. Lately it seems that our credit card bill is constantly expanding. It’s not that we spend a lot of money on things, it’s just that every day items add up over the course of a month. I loved walking out the door knowing that I wouldn’t see any of today’s transactions on my credit card bill. If we didn’t use a cash-back credit card I would definitely consider paying for items with cash more often.
Fred Meyer (supermarket) has coin acceptors at its self-checkouts. I frequently spend my accumulated change there. Yes, it takes time (more time than Coinstar) but there is no fee or discount.
Supermarkets NEED coin in order to make change. Many banks charge today (in both directions) for rolled coin. So Fred Meyer offers a mutually-beneficial way to move coin from where it is unwanted to where it is wanted.
Why Pay More? (pun intended)
I rarely use my credit card unless I don’t have the cash on hand. At least, that’s the idea in theory.
But it’s nice using a CC, then I can keep track of purchases. Although I must admit, I still have $150 left over from last month sitting in my wallet in cash, unused.
I think I end up using my credit card for everything I can. It means carrying less cash around, and earning cashback. When I do pay in cash, I try to use coins, since I hate having my coinpurse fill up with coins while my dollar bills dwindle. The longer I can go between going to the ATM, the better.