Turning change into real money

That, times like 40

Coins are basically useless.  After a few unproductive minutes, I couldn't come up with stats on the breakdown of credit, debit and cash purchases.  But even that cash portion is mostly paper.  And don't get me started on the silly dollar coins.  Change is dead weight, until you find a reasonable way to cash them in in bulk.

With an impending move and pounds of currency, I figured it was time to do so.  I really should have taken a picture of my pile of cash, but didn't think of it.  So the left will have to do, with some imagination.  In that quantity, it was worth a thorough consideration of the hassle of counting and rolling coins versus the usurious rates charged by counting services.

I do most of my banking through Bank of America.  However, offhand, I didn't think they had any services more convenient than just accepting rolled coins.  An online chat representative provided me with a ray of hope -- cashing in unrolled increments of $50.  But apparently, that's not so popular in New York City.

That left me with the usual suspects.  TD Bank's fee is 6% for non-clients.  It's waived if you open a new account, but I've already conceded that I'm ready to lose out on a couple bucks to minimize the PITA factor...  Coinstar charges 9.8%, and has no nearby locations anyway.  So TD Bank it was.

I had one more chance to make up part of that 6%.  Guess your change amount within $1.99, get a prize!  Knowing from my initial B of A attempts that the bulk of my coins, and all of the quarters, added up to $200, I took a stab at $240.  An optimistic estimate, as it turned out.  After TD's $13.38 cut, I walked out with $209.72 in not-so-cold hard cash.  Yes, having 72 cents left was not ideal, but I'm assuming I'll come across more change as I move out, so no big deal.

Ka-ching.

Finally, a few last metaphysical thoughts on the whole process.  It was striking to start out with pounds of coin, convert it to a few leafs of paper, and around the corner at the B of A ATM, send it off into cyberspace.  My current and future sustenance, not to mention our entire financial system, rests on trust that these electronic records tally up.  Weird!