Monday, April 24, 2006

What's in my Change Jar?

Nothing. That's because I don't have one. I carry all my coins in my wallet and pay with exact change whenever I can. Often when I'm waiting in line to buy my morning coffee, I'll check out the floor to see if anyone has dropped any money, just in case. Usually, there's nothing. But today, I had just realized that I had $1.56 to buy my $1.57 coffee without breaking a $20 bill. The cashiers at the deli know me and I know they wouldn't hassle me about being short one penny, but I don't like to ask, you know? So I thought, oh, wouldn't it be perfect if I found a penny right now... and sure enough, when the person in front of me stepped forward, there was a penny on the floor just waiting for me. It was a little dirty and sticky, I have to say, but I picked it up and paid for my coffee with it.
So as of this moment, I have no change, at all, nada. (Except for all my leftover foreign coins, which I keep in the drawer of a jewelry box.) For some perverse reason, this is the kind of thing that I find really satisfying.

8 comments:

Dawn said...

I love it when that happens!
cool (coffee) beans.

Anonymous said...

Question about Google Ads...

Just out of curiousity..how much do you earn from the ads on this blog site? I.e., in a month span how much do you earn?

Anonymous said...

Waste not, want not!

Anonymous said...

You find it satisfying to not have any change. Interesting.

Anonymous said...

I too don't have a change jar and like to have as little change as possible. However, I do find the optimal amount of change for me to carry is about 60 cents. Why? Because all too often cashiers can't figure out how to give back the right amount of change, even when the machine tells the amount. If I can give the right amount I don't have to worry about that problem.

Tiredbuthappy said...

I also get a little thrill out of paying with exact change.

But I recently got a change jar again, because now that I'm sharing money with my spouse, it requires a loooong discussion every time I want to transfer $$ to savings. My change jar is a sneaky way to save. Sometimes I intentionally don't give them a penny if the total is $8.01 or similar, because I want that $0.99 in savings.

Love the new site design, Madame. And it is so gratifying to be inducted into Madame X's Asterisk Club!

Anonymous said...

For those who have an inability to pay with change, and end up with a change jar/bucket, a good way to convert the change into real money without having to pay the usurious "commissions" at the coin counting machines is to go to a Coinstar machine and use your coins to buy a gift card/certificate (you can get one for Borders, amazon.com, Starbucks, and a few other places--see http://www.coinstar.com/us/WebDocs/A1-0-3-1). There's no coin-counting fee when you do this, so you get back every single penny, albeit in a gift card.

Anonymous said...

Ive got a 10 gallon water jar that i use has a penny (coin) jar. A couple months ago, i was really bored so i counted it, and it ened up being 90 bucks or so. Now it is like 4 or 5 times that...and it weighs like 15 pounds or so.

Now i made it a goal to fill it all the way up in my life, because its not even a fraction of th eway full.