Coins, Coins, Coins!

So here's a "frugal living" themed post. Have you ever used one of those coin-counting machines you see in the front of most grocery stores these days? I've done it just a couple of times before, most recently when I was on a late-night ice cream run in my hubby's car and decided to dump his cup of loose change in to see how much was in it. It paid for the ice cream and then some, by the way- almost $9 in loose change just sitting in his center console, and I left him a bunch of quarters, dimes & nickels for parking meters!

In the past I usually would just walk right on by those machines, because of course they charge a fee for counting all those coins, and I have kids who can do that! Coinstar charges 9.8 cents on the dollar for coins counted in their machines-ouch. HOWEVER, this time, I noticed a FREE option. That's right- you can now dump your change jar into a Coinstar machine and trade for a gift card or eCertificate to quite a variety of places. (Amazon, iTunes, Old Navy, Starbucks- just to name a few of my favorites!) Maybe this has been going on for awhile, but it was news to me! There's more specific info on the Coinstar website if you're curious to find out more. But you can bet I am now itching to take my big bucket of coins to trade in for an Amazon gift card!

Speaking of Amazon...I have also gotten hooked on using SwagBucks as my search engine of choice, because I can earn points that get me Amazon.com gift cards! There are lots of other options, those have just been my prize of choice. I have "earned" about $30 in gift cards just by searching the internet via the SwagBucks toolbar. If you'd like to check it out and get started for yourself, would you do me a favor and use my referral link below? That way I get credit for you, too!