Financial Tips: Count Your Coins
In an economy where you can find very little for under R10, coins are becoming less and less useful. Most of us tend to only keep small change on hand for the parking attendants, or for a handful of sweets at the corner store. Yes, it is handy to have a few coins when you pay for larger items, so that you don’t have to break a larger note. The truth is, even in these cases, it’s more common to grab a magazine or a chocolate bar at the till to cover the balance, instead of fishing out the coins. As such, your coppers and silvers are resigned to life at the bottom of your handbag or lost under the couch, never to be used or missed again.
The benefits of keeping your coins
Coins, while tedious, are still valid currency. There are plenty of opportunities to use them in daily life. In fact, paying in coins can help you save money! Imagine the following scenario: you are at a grocery store checkout till, about to pay your bill. You feel hurried by the next person in the queue, so you don’t want to waste everyone’s time by counting out all your coins. Instead, you pay with paper. The cashier then hands you your change, in coins, which just adds to the amount of coins in your wallet. This process is repeated every time you make a cash purchase, and you end up with a large denomination of coins that you overlook. The first lesson here is that by paying with coins, you can reduce the inconvenience of all those coins weighting down your wallet. The more important benefit is that you are spending that money that you don’t even mentally budget or account for in coins.
Every penny counts
Most stores are happy to accept coins in payment, as this means that they always have enough change in their tills. To save yourself and your cashiers a bit of time, you can collect your coins at home and put them in bank bags with the correct denominations, to make payments easier. Alternatively, you can take these bank bags to your bank and deposit them, which can make a significant contribution to your bank balance. For more money saving tips, contact One Debt today.