Counting Coins

[bjarvis]

I've been feeling very mentally unfocused lately so I tried my usual fix: letting myself get lost in some small routine task. In this case, I counted coins.

Friends are constantly giving me Canadian coins. Somehow, these coins turn up in their pockets but since most US vending machines reject them, they don't have much value unless you can slip one past a store clerk. Since I do return to Canada periodically, many folks are holding onto the odd loonie, giving it to me when our paths cross.

Counting up the current collection, I have slightly more than $170 in Canadian coins --I didn't count the pennies as I'm sure there's less than $2 and I just tripped across another small cache of change. Now I just have to get to Canada again some time to deposit them in the bank.

Comments

[trawnapanda.livejournal.com]

what do you do with US coinage?

I have two piggybanks, into which I put all coins 25c and below at the end of the day (loonies and toonies stay in the pockets); and every so often I roll 'em up and they go in the bank, a form of stealth savings.

I yank (ahem) any US coins from 5c and up I find in my loose change for spending on my next visit to the republic down south, but that cumulates to about $5 a year. I don't bother with pennies, so bronze Mr Lincolns end up rolled in with bronze Mrs Queens and deposited at the bank.

If you rolled your US coinage, could you not pass off the canajun stuff little by little?

(funnily enough, I got a US quarter in change just this morning - maybe the first this year, not an everyday event).

[weekilter.livejournal.com]

It's a thought. However, when you give a roll of coins to the bank they note who it came from (note your account number and such) so they'd ultimately be able to come back to you if it was noted that you slipped in non-US coinage. You might could get into trouble. Don't know that, but just sayin'.

[weekilter.livejournal.com]

Qanadian Kuarters work in the older style parking meters (the analog 'twist' type not the newer digital ones.) They also work (in Seattle at least) in metro transit fare boxes. However, with that said the advantage to using Qanadian coins is almost nil seeing as how the Qanadian and US dollar are almost par anyhow. Scratch that. Just went to http://oanda.com and chequed the rate and it's now US$ 1.00 = CA$ 1.16.