Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Loose change for gift cards

I have a confession--I used to be a thief. My husband would come home every day, empty his pockets of his wallet, cell phone, keys and loose change, and I would steal his change. The next day he would look for it, wanting to use it in the snack machine, and it would be gone. This caused no end of small skirmishes in the Finn household. Why was I a thief, you ask? Well, I had this dream of saving all of my spare change and one day being able to take a dream vacation somewhere (I am sure I have heard of this happening!). Yet even though I hoarded the change, and robbed my husband of his mid-afternoon Skittles fix, I never seemed to collect more than thirty or forty dollars! That wouldn't get us far on the dream vacation...plus I was causing some marital strife :-)

Thankfully, my husband and I worked through our differences and I don't steal his change anymore (at least not all the time, and when I do, I ask). AND I have found a way to turn my change into something productive : Coinstar. I had never used a coin counting machine before this time last year, because I knew to get cash back for your coins, the machines would charge a fee. What I didn't know is that you can trade your loose change in for gift cards and e-certificates and Coinstar will not charge a fee. Your loose change can become a gift card to ITunes or Amazon! And, just to make it even better, right now Coinstar is offering an additional $10 gift card when you change $40 or more. I did this promotion last year, and received the extra gift card just as promised. You should definitely check this out--Coinstar and free gift cards Works for Me!

5 comments:

  1. I am going to do this. This sounds so easy and we have so much change laying around.

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  2. I just saw the add for the extra $10 today!! I am very excited about that. Derek is great about keeping change I will have to ask him for his. :)

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  3. What a great feature! I had no idea you could redeem them for gift cards now.

    :)

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  4. Shoot! we just did Coinstar and our total was $38.00. Had I known, I would have thrown in the extra two dollars for the free giftcard. Great to know that you got it and thanks for sharing this great tip!

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  5. oh, i never knew that about coinstar! i always thought it charged you a fee, no way around it. I will have to do that next time I have a full can of change..
    glad you worked things out with your hubby too ^_^

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