A news item caught my attention last night. On 31 July 2006 the Reserve Bank of New Zealand introduced some new coins. The 5c coin was made obselete, and they resized the 10, 20 and 50 cent pieces. I forget how many million coins they put into circulation at this date. I know it was a lot, but it seems a few million coins have gone missing.
The Reserve Bank are appealing for people to empty the jars of coins they collect and spend them so they go back into circulation. If people do this, they won’t have to spend money minting new coins.
According to the Reserve Bank the average person has two hundred coins on hand at once, and men are worse than women at hoarding coins. They empty their pockets and put the coins in a jar.
I have to say that I don’t hoard coins. I’m not one of the people who have two hundred coins hanging around. I use my coins to buy papers and milk, the odd ice cream, and I use them for bus fares. Nope, you won’t find stray coins hiding down the back of my couch!
What about you? Do you have two hundred coins hiding around the place? How is your partner with coins? Are you…gasp!!…a coin hoarder?
Yes! DH and I are hoarders. And it really paid off when DH was laid off a few years back. We each had buckets of change that we cashed in to buy groceries, etc. Yes, between us we had over $100 in pennies, nickels and dimes. Anything bigger – quarters, loonies or toonies, are used for bus fare.
The same thing happened over here with pennies. I remember seeing a news bulletin asking people to turn in their pennies. My husband and I had $9.37 in a coffee can.
It’s not me it’s the bottom of my purse that is a coin hoarder. My husband loves to collect coins and definately has a coffee can full of change.
My hubby seems to accumulate a vast amount of change in his pockets. Every once in a while he pays for things entirely in coin.
I think if the US recalled a particular coin I would likely hold on to a few for posterity.
I have a few coins that are special to me because they belonged to my grandmother. She is now deceased. I also save my hubby’s change to buy Christmas presents. I guess I’m a coin hoarder. LOL
Have a great day.
I never hoard coins. I use them for parking meters, and such. But I have a friend who ‘saves’ pennies in a giant jar that I wouldn’t even attempt to lift!
Years of traveling have left me with a jar of shrapnel from all the countries I visited. Our grandchildren love it as play money. There was a roll of low denomination notes as well, but our son took them to the bank and changed them when he was young. (He had an uncomfortable interview with me when he returned home, because the bank manager rang us before he changed the notes and the proceeds were deducted from his pocket money, plus a fine.)
We keep mint sets of each change of Australian coins for our grandchildrens’ children, but no significant hoards of coinage other than these.
Amy
I have a gallon jug in my kitchen where I hoard coins. Doing Laundry I get a windfall from emptying the 4 males in the house’s pockets, And dusting I get the fistfuls left on nightstands and bathroom counters… not to mention what I find on the floor or the bottom of my purse.
Once a year I empty it and make a sizeable amount of “Found money”. last year it was $245. If there’s nothing we desparately need, its fun money for vacations.
Afraid we are typical. My husband empties his pockets every night and puts the coins in a coin bank that has slots for nickels, dimes, and quarters. He does empty it when full and bring the coins to the bank. The only hoarding is the penny jar. I spend mine.
Ah, I’d forgotten about my foreign coin collection, so I guess I am a hoarder after all. Each time we visit a different country, we keep a few coins and toss them inside a little cane basket.
I’m afraid the rest of the coin collections I raid and they don’t add up to enough for holiday money.
Marissa – my husband used to run his own business when we were first married. He’d stuff notes in his pockets and forget about them. I used to find doing the washing a very profitable chore!
I notice a lot of you have mentioned penny collections. We used to have 1c and 2c coins. They were taken out of circulation a few years ago. The 5c coin went the same way recently so our smallest coin is a 10c piece, which is the same color as a penny.
I spend my small change, but my husband complains the weight makes his shorts fall down (umm ok… !) so he puts all his change into an old whiskey bottle box. Which is very handy as I’ve often been known to raid it when I’m a bit short and need some bread!!!
A little bit–I’ve been collecting the newly issued State quarters from the past several years (not every single quarter, but a couple of each state), and I try to save some of the change that is from each of my kids’ birth years, just for yuks. Aside from that, I try to spend our change :)
Christina – the weight of the change makes his shorts fall down??? Oh, no!!
Fedora – I didn’t realize there were different quarters. I know Australia often has commerative coins, but we never do in NZ.
I don’t hoard coins, but I do save my change for things that I need. I saved my quarters to buy new tires for my car, took me about a year, but I didn’t have to charge that amount on my credit card.
My husband hoards, but with everything – not just coins. When his change dish starts overflowing, I scoop a lot of it into my wallet and send it on its way, back into circulation.
Coins are money so I just spend them when my purse starts getting too heavy!!