The average person has $90 in coins sitting around?!

Over the weekend my husband & I explored the new Coinstar offerings, since we needed by buy several gift cards this year. You see, teenagers really don’t want anything that you pick out!

You get an e-Certificate that you give to the recipient with a code for them to enter, they can use it in the store or on-line. There are many different places to choose from, some of these are Amazon.com, Home Depot, Chili’s, Starbucks, X-box, etc.

Since I save change all year and our banks will not count change anymore, Coinstar allowed us to get all the people on our list e-Certificates this year. I just throw what is in my pocket, my car or bottom of my purse at the end of the day into an old cleaned out pickle jar & never think about it again.

However, if you don’t hoard change, Coinstar’s game “Mining for Coins” shows that the average family has $90 in coins in various hiding places in their house! That is a nice amount to have laying around doing nothing when you are struggling to find money for gifts.

You can also donate to various charities; The American Red Cross, UNICEF, the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, Humane Society of U.S., etc.

OR you can actually get the cash, but there is a fee.

Please post any other saving ideas? I can always use more!

College Highlight: (Coinstar founder, StanfordUniversity grad; Jens Molbak)

http://www.stanford.edu/