How should spare change be exchanged?

Coinstar will charge zero if you will take one of the gift cards they offer. Since my daughter likes iTunes, a $20 gift card is just as easy to get at the Coinstar machine as anyplace. They offer a multitude of choices, Amazon gift cards among them.

The current list for gift cards -

Really, stop saving coins. It's no big deal to give a cashier at the supermarket up to 10 pennies, or a toll guy $2 in coins. Just don't give the toll guy $1 in pennies. Remember, stores often need coins or $1/$5 bills, so they are happy to take them as long as the timing is right.

1. Go to a self-checkout at a supermarket late at night or early in the morning.
2. Pay for your week's groceries with your spare change.

You may want to keep some of your change - especially your nickels. I know George would be disappointed if I didn't point this out. :)

I don't suppose you could keep it in your pocket and just spend it? That's what I do.

Have you tried your local panhandler? She/He will probably accept 50€ in small change.

We're easily amused I guess, but my wife and I collect our change in a big jar and seperate it once a year on the kitchen table, usually on a snow-day in January or February.

We separate out coins from certain years to collect, then we roll it up, and it goes into the vacation fund.

TD Bank (Northeast US) has free change counting machines at its branches. You don't have to have an account to use them.

I separate out the quarters and larger (I'm Canadian, so there are coins bigger than a quarter). Then I put the rest in charity boxes.

You just take some of that change and use it when paying in cash. When you run out of change in your purse/pockets - take more. It just takes some time and absolutely no effort.

Do you eat out much or go to coffee shops? I add portions of my excess spare change to the tips/tip jars. I make it a bit over the usual percentage to make up for the fact that it's, well, spare change...

You could donate them to charity. If you get a receipt for your donation, it will be tax deductible as long as it is to a 501c(3).

You could make them into a piece of artwork. The sky's the limit as to what you could create. As long as you don't fraudulently alter the coins, then it should be legal to make whatever kind of art you want from them.

You could take a trip to the arcade and buy some arcade tokens or visit a coin-operated laundromat.

You could always just take them to the bank and trust that the bank will count them correctly. And if they've been sitting at home for a few weeks or even a few years, a one week waiting period for the coins to be deposited in your account is a pretty short waiting period to have them converted into a more usable format.