A 46oz pickle jar can hold about $15 worth of pennies.
I know this because, thanks to my friend Kate's post, I learned about a coin-counting machine maker named Coinstar. I found a credit union at the bottom of my hill which has one of their machines installed, and I took my accumulated pennies in their Vlasic jar down there today. I paid a 10% fee off the top to the credit union, but I could equally have donated the cash to a charity like the American Red Cross or the March of Dimes, among others, or gotten a full-value gift certificate from a whole bunch of web retailers, including Amazon, Lowes, Disney, Pier 1, Borders and iTunes.
It's pretty slick. You just enter your zip code into the machine locator box in the navigation bar at the Coinstar website and you're provided with a list of locations in your neighborhood. There's no need to roll the coins and take them to a bank; you just pour your loose coins into a hopper and it whirs away, giving you a running total of the amount by type of coin on the display screen.
Posted by Linkmeister at November 19, 2008 01:33 PM | TrackBackmy jar is not any bigger than that and the other night I sat down with coin rollers in hand, while watching some (less than riveting) show and when it was done, I was done and $113.00 richer!! I thought coinstar charged a percentage of what you put in which is why I did it myself and took to the bank??
Posted by: cyn at November 20, 2008 10:02 AMThe company charges the financial institution 8.9%, the website says. The c/u I went to rounded up to 10 cents on the dollar, although if you go the charity or e-certificate route it waives the fee.
Posted by: Linkmeister at November 20, 2008 11:46 AM