Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Loose Change

Years ago I started throwing my loose change into a large restaurant-size pickle bottle. Whenever my purse started feeling heavy I'd empty the coins into the bottle.  Lloyd would empty his pockets and I'd scoop up his loose change and toss it into the bottle.  Every once in awhile I'd empty the bottle, roll the coins and take my 'found money' to the bank.  A little bit here, a little bit there.

I hadn't emptied the bottle in a couple of years.  In fact, when the big bottle got filled up I just started filling another. 



The other day I decided to roll the coins and take them to the bank.  But first I weighed the jars.  The big one weighed 35 lbs.  The smaller one was a mere 10.5 lbs.  Money is heavy!

I dumped the coins onto my dining room table and started sorting and rolling them - huge job - took me two days to get them all done.  Of course in that time I had to go out and buy more coin rollers.



We have a lot of coins in Canada.  Pennies, of course, which the government has decided to phase out of existence.  They're not going to make any more.  Then there's the nickles (5 cents), dimes (10 cents), quarters (25 cents), loonies ($1.00), and twoonies ($2.00).  They all got tossed into the coin jars.



And then began the tedious job of sorting, counting and rolling the coins.  Luckily I'm able to multi-task so I kept the television on for company while I sorted and counted and rolled, and sorted and counted and rolled, and sorted.....you get the picture.

All rolled and ready to go


My final total was a staggering $776.00!  That loose change really adds up! 

Today I have to find a way to lug 45.5 lbs of rolled coins to the bank to deposit in my account.  I might have to make two trips.  That's heavy!  And as Lloyd pointed out, it'll more than pay for our trip to BC to visit our daughter Mary and her family this weekend.

But first I think I'll empty the change from my wallet into the big empty jar and start another round of saving.

9 comments:

Southhamsdarling said...

Oh yes, you must start your saving straight away! What a marvellous amount and to pay for your trip to see your daughter. Have a safe trip and a Happy Easter to you and your family.

Magpie said...

Wow! That's a lot of loose change for sure. I think I'll go find me a pickle jar. :)

I'm mostly known as 'MA' said...

I try to do it on a smaller scale using an old makeup bag to hold my change that way it isn't too heavy but of course I don't save so much either. I would say your loose change should make for a wonderful trip to see your daughter. Congrats on saving so much!

Mickey said...

wow! that's alot of change. We want to know how long you've been saving?!
Safe trip and hope our big storm coming doesn't affect your long drive!

Granny Annie said...

Thankfully we no longer have to roll our loose coin. We simply take it to our bank and they pour it into a machine then deposit the total to our account.

TARYTERRE said...

NOW where have I heard this story before? LOL That's alot of loot you collected. ENJOY the windfall. Happy Easter.

RoeH said...

I've done that for years. Once I got $480 or something like that and paid off a visa bill. I like your figure better. :)

Delena said...

OMG Pat I do the same thing. I throw the US coins into a jar here and at the end of the season take them to the Walmart change machine. In Canada I throw them in a jar (like yours) and once a year cash them in. It is so embarrasing lugging all that into the bank and once I almost dropped it.
p.s. thank for visiting my blog.
the wordle is fun to create and can be created at:

http://www.wordle.net/create

Have a nice week!

Sush said...

Whoa! I am so very impressed. I don't think we would ever have that much saved in a jar. My husband always raids our piggy jars!
Good job!

Hugs~