CoinStar Magic

When talking about money and spending habits, many Europeans I know will bring up the inevitable: that all Americans apparently live off their credit cards. Now although I know this statement seems to belong in last week’s post on stereotypes, I thought that in light of the current economic crisis I would give it an entire post of its own.

My starting point, though, is going to be the same as last week: not all Americans live like that. Of course, I know some who live from surviving one credit card payment to the next, and even some who have gotten themselves in way over their heads. But I also know many Americans who are nothing like that. They live off what they earn, put away a little in savings each month, only use their credit cards sparingly, and when they do, pay them off immediately. My husband and I would be the prime example of such (Dutch) Americans.

Now I don’t think I would call myself or husband-dear stingy, or even frugal. Instead I like to think of us as economically efficient. We are the kind of who will fret over every large (read everything over $150) purchase. Endlessly. I mean in the sense that buying a new loveseat took two months. We are also the kind who will feel guilty when splurging on something frivolous such as new light fixtures when the old ones still work fine. In our very practical world the ugliness of something is never really an excuse to replace it, not even when your current lights look like something out of a 1930s French boudoir. So you can imagine my relief when the old (and quite hideous, in my opinion) couch, finally became too soft to make a comfortable seat. And finally, we are the type of people who will put off a lot of things for, well forever. We’re still debating on whether to get a ($60) Senseo machine, for instance, because having two coffeemakers seems so, well, decadent. Right. Now I don’t want to create the impression that we don’t enjoy life. We do. We just seem to have a certain Calvinistic attitude about it.

So this past weekend, with Christmas coming up, and a few expensive months behind us, we decided to keep it low-key. No trips to musicals in Atlanta (although Wicked was more than worth it), no more trips to La-Z-Boy to purchase new loveseats (it’s coming in two weeks!), and no crazy dining out at the best sushi restaurant in town. We decided to spend a weekend at home, enjoying all the comforts we already have; our dog, our bikes, the outdoors, the TV, and our large DVD collection, in no particular order.

So after a semi-lazy Saturday, in which we still managed to knock out some serious chores, a puppy class, a music lesson, laundry, and a run out of the way, husband-dear and I were hanging out in front of the TV, when we decided it would be fun to go out and do something. Anything really. But we had promised ourselves we wouldn’t splurge. So what does a frugal, excuse me, economically efficient, couple do at such a moment? Yes, we went for our loose change jar. My husband has a huge German steiner on his dresser, that we have, over the past year or so, managed to fill to the very top with all of our loose change. In a moment very much reminiscent of my days in college, we loaded ourselves and our jar into our car, and drove to the nearest Publix for their CoinStar machine.

The CoinStar machine is probably one of the better American inventions. It’s a machine that will take all of your change in a hole in the top, take off 8% (one of its lesser points), and present you with a receipt for the amount of money you can go pick up at customer service.

Now I have to say that if there is one thing I learned that day it’s that saving your change is definitely worth it. I had guessed our change jar held about $10, my husband, claiming I was way off, estimated we had about $20 in there. In the end, we walked away with $68 in cash. And because it really felt like money we had just found somewhere, we felt no qualms about splurging it all. So our low-key weekend turned out to be not so low-key after all. And I guarantee you all, I have already started saving all of our change again.