BecomingFrugal.com

Chunk of Change

I recently took in my “piggy bank” of change, I had originally planned to wait until it was full, but it was getting heavy already and I’m trying hard to pay down my debt asap, so I took it in to my bank.

Lucky for me my bank has a free coin machine (like coinstar but free for customers) and guess how much I got? A little over $300. The bank teller remarked, “that’s a nice chunk of change!”

Oh yes, it was! It went straight to my credit card too, I’m happy to get it down any little bit so this was awesome.

Probably a year or so ago I found myself in a grocery store at night after watching a movie in a theatre. We were hungry but really didn’t want fast food, so even though it was around 7pm we ran into the market for something we could make really fast. As I scouted out the deli and “premade” food section, a store employee came over and started marking down all the precooked chickens from 5.99 to 1.99. I asked her why they were being marked down and she told me they do it every evening around that time! Now, granted, I am not going to always be eating dinner that late, but I can certainly use this meat in lunch sandwiches, salads, and other recipes the next day. Once I spoke with her I remembered why they mark them down. My mother once worked in a deli at a major market chain and every night whatever “prepared food” they didn’t sell had to be THROWN away!!! I remember her frustration at the fact that they couldn’t give it away (it had to do with liability and not wanting to take any risks) so they’d always mark the items down later in the day.

$5 gas card

So a few months back, I read a post on another blog about chevron’s online contest to win a $5 gift card. It was a little trivia contest and if you got the answers right you were eligible to win a $5 gift card. I just got it in the mail and I’m so excited! I know it’s just $5 but it’s awesome to win something for free!! It’s my first win at anything online and now I’ll probably be hooked.

Just a note though, I am very wary of online contests and promotions unless I hear about them from a reliable source. Since this one was actually on Chevron.com I figured it was legit. Be careful what sites you give your information to, there are scam artists everywhere these days, sad but true.

Mandy sizing up my new piggy bank jar

My husband and I have a habit of throwing our loose change in a plastic jar as a piggy bank of sorts. The last time we took one in, we got something like a few hundred dollars. I remember the cashier had to double check and get approval to cash the coinstar receipt.

We haven’t taken any change in for cash in a long time so we had an overflowing plastic jar. Recently someone I know was throwing away a much larger plastic jar that had been filled with candy or something, so I asked to keep it. This is my new much larger piggy bank! I can’t wait to see how much I end up with this time!

I do actually use change for purchases if I have it on me. What goes in the jar is just whatever we have left at the end of the day, or what I find in pockets doing laundry. It’s a fun way to save a little extra something on the side for something special.

The jar I had before was a gallon arrowhead water jug and it was full, I poured it into this one and look how much room I have left!

I took in all my cans, bottles, and glass again for another run on my way to the grocery store. I got just over $9 this time for 3 weeks of collecting (of course I had more this time after the holiday). So far my tally for recycling is about $22 (9.25 +5.25 +7.50) I rounded those numbers because I had to turn in the receipts for the cash, but that’s pretty close.

For me going every 3 weeks seems optimal, I end up with almost a full bag of cans and another of plastic. I love trading my trash for cash!

Recently I read about a program called swagbucks. I have only just started the program, but many bloggers I read say it works, and they get free gift cards every month (or every few if you don’t search often)

Here’s how it works: When you sign up and use their search engine, with each search you have a chance to win swagbucks. Once you’ve saved enough swagbucks you can cash them in for gift cards or other prizes. Doesn’t sound too shabby considering I’m online all the time and do tons of searches daily. If you’re interested, give it a try!

Okay, most everyone recycles these days, using the big bins the trash collector leaves us. But did you know we get charged for that? Every month there is a “recycling fee” on my trash bill, not substantial, about 5 bucks. I called to find out it’s a flat fee so even if I put less in the container I still get charged the same amount, darn. I don’t mind paying to recycle, it’s a good thing, I was just hoping to save money by taking it in myself.

Either way I realized that I could take some of this stuff in myself and make money off it, however little, I figured I’d try it anyway, it doesn’t take much time or effort.

There’s a small recycling center next to a grocery store I shop at regularly anyway, so I decided to give this a shot. Now keep in mind we only have a household of 2, but since we work full time and commute, we’re very busy and often buy canned soda and bottled water to take on the go.

My husband bought a little 2 bin trash sorter a few months back that we never used. It’s pretty small but I decided to put it to use for my cans and bottle collection. At the end of the week I empty it into 2 larger cans outside (we had these laying around too from before we lived in a house) After about 3 weeks I took in my 1 bag of bottles and 1 bag of cans with me to the grocery store. I stopped in the lot next to the big recycling bin, and pulled out my bags. The man working there came over with 2 big trash cans that were empty and asked me to put plastic in one and aluminum in the other. In about a minute I had that done and he weighed each one. I forget the weight on each, but he then printed me a ticket for $7.50 that I could cash in the grocery store. Perfect, I was just going there! I loaded up my cart with my weekly groceries, used a few coupons, and then used the recycling ticket toward the rest. (I could have cashed it and gotten the cash, but this works for me)

The next time I did it, I went after only 2 weeks, but also took glass, I only got $5 that time, but hey, it’s money I wouldn’t have otherwise.

Okay this isn’t exactly rocket science, and not a big money maker, but the way I’m treasuring coupons these days, it makes sense to take the time to do this and make a few bucks a week to use toward my groceries (like I do with coupons!) You wouldn’t throw away 5 bucks every two weeks would you? Yeah, apparently I used to.