Does anybody save their change?

[happywriter]

I'm interested if some people save their loose change below a certain value. Putting away nightly all the loose pocket change below 50 pence in a container will soon mount up, and provide a nice little nest egg at the end of each month. It also saves your pockets from wearing out!

[TracyG]

I save 1ps, 2ps and 5ps in an old ornamental bucket. I don't save them up for anything in particular, though every few months I'll cash them in and fritter the money away on some treat or other. I take them to my local Asda where they have a coin machine that sorts and counts the change and then gives me a ticket showing how much I have accumulated. The ticket can be exchanged for real money at Asda's customer services desk. They deduct about 7p from every £1 poured in to the machine, though this beats counting and bagging the money and taking it to the bank, which would incur more than 7p in the pound in parking charges.

[Chutzpah]

My wife does. Handy when I run out of money (often, as I don't usually carry cash and pay on card)

[Tony]

I put it in a dish in the hall with my keys and recover the pounds in the morning my wife fills her purse with the rest. I tend to pay with notes and cards, but she likes to count out the exact amount which always seems to take forever...

[Chutzpah]

Argh! My wife does that when there's a huge queue!

I always feel like disowning her at that point....

[Georginazn]

We have old brass tankards on a shelf -one each for 1p, 2p, and 5p. Pocket and purse tip outs top them up! Every Christmas we bag them up and bank them and send the proceeds to Wateraid. It's usually around £15.
We used to save 20ps too, but they got raided too often!

[happywriter]

I just decide how 'rich' I feel that week. If things are going well, all coins less than 50 pence from my pockets at the end of the day get saved. A bad week would be 20 pence. In any case, it adds fast. Of course, the saving comes out of next week's spending.

[Rachelle]

I am extremely jealous of you all having change to save! Nope, I am always down to my last pennies, scrabbling madly under the sofa (although my bag does prove to be quite a resource of one pound coins) and raiding my childrens piggy banks .... oh well.

[happywriter]

It is a thought process really, not that anybody has so much spare money. The necessity to break into another £5 or £10 note emphasises the amount being spent, thus encouraging savings or doing without when shopping and spending.

[Chutzpah]

I know many people think that carrying cash helps them track their spend, whereas always paying by card is 'lethal'.

However, I find that when you only have your card and no cash you think twice before buying something that is a couple of pounds.