When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.
I just took possession of my first Mercedes ever—a 2020 E350. I was wondering what everyone here does with their coins to keep them from flying around? I looked around Amazon for center armrest console organizers, but couldn't find one that fit my particular year and model.
I use a coin holder that was originally for an Audi A4 @1998 (I think the part was made by VW); in its original configuration in the A4 it was a perfect fit, but not so in subsequent cars (BMW 5 series and now MB E400). I keep it in the center console, where it's handy for quarters and nickels, and stops the coins from rattling around. Bit of an antique, since mostly everything is digital these days, but handy on occasion.
No coinage for me. Everything is cards or electronic. In the very rare occurrence I have metal currency, it stays in my pocket until arriving home, then goes onto the kitchen counter. My wife uses coins, for what purpose, I have no idea.
Coins, what coins....? No seriously, like others have said, I don't keep coins in the car or on my person. I have a little bit of cash in my wallet (bills) for the rare occasion when a business is cash only. If I receive loose change back, I either drop it in the tip jar or keep it in my pocket until I'm home where it goes into a coin jar. From there once every couple of years I take it to a Coinstar. All my transactions are otherwise digital, either Apple Pay/Cash, PayPal, Venmo or credit card, and for parking I pay using phone apps or credit card and I use the Shell app to pay for gas. Who still wants to deal with metal currency? At the moment, nobody wants to touch cash anyway. Most businesses around here have gone to touchless payment, or disinfect the credit card you are handing them or make the customer swipe or stick the credit card into the chip reader. I would also refuse taking cash or coins from anybody at the moment. The cash I currently have in my wallet has gone untouched since February. All my credit cards now support tap&pay as well, but I always use my phone anyway.
Last edited by superswiss; 07-05-2020 at 02:42 AM.
Wait, what? You have to rent the shopping carts? Never been to an Aldi's........probably never will now lol. Are they in NC?
I didn't know Aldi has locations in the USA! Aldi is a German grocery store chain, and this practice is very common in Europe. The shopping carts are chained up at the front of the store and to release one you have to insert a coin (I think it's a 1 Euro coin in Germany if I remember correctly). It makes people return the shopping carts to the front of the store in order to get their coin back, instead of leaving them scattered all over the parking lot as is the case here at most grocery stores. You can also get a plastic coin of the right size for this use, so you don't need an actual coin, but one is incentified to return the cart to get it back.
To be honest, whenever I visit Europe or also Japan, I do carry coins on me, because much of Europe and Japan are still very much cash societies. I have a couple of small coin wallets for this purpose that fit in my pocket. Most Scandinavian countries are close to being a 100% cashless or already are, but not the rest of Europe. When I visited Iceland and Denmark, I used zero cash. Every little thing can be paid for with credit card. In Iceland you even swipe your credit card to use public restrooms, since it's common to have to pay to use public restrooms in much of Europe.
Last edited by superswiss; 07-05-2020 at 01:09 PM.
I have a small coin purse that I keep in the center console. I use the coins in parking meters - not all meters accept a credit card.
That's surprising for LA. Here in NorCal, pretty much all cities have upgraded their parking meters, and also use ParkMobile or PayByPhone. Both are apps to pay for parking by zone and license plate. No need to even feed the parking meter, and you can easily extend the parking time from the phone up to the allowed maximum if you can't make it back to the car in the prepaid amount of time. The apps also alert 15 minutes before the meter expires. I only use credit card on meters in places that don't support these apps yet.
Like others, I have no use for coins anymore — even a nickel candy bar (yeah, I'm THAT old) costs more than buck these days! Instead for the last 29 years I've dumped all of the change I received into a giant wine bottle that I got when I was president of my professional group. The executive board of the organization met in Cincinnati in the fall of 1991, and we ate dinner one night in a local Italian restaurant. We spotted the bottle sitting on a shelf and, being a bunch of winos, inquired about it. The waiter told us it was a double magnum (i.e., 3-liters), which we thought would be sufficient as a starter for the eight of us. We negotiated a bit and IIRC got the bottle for $150, which was a bargain when we discovered that it was actually 5 liters, not just 3. Anyway, as the president of the organization, I got to keep the empty bottle, which has been on my closet shelf ever since, right where I can dump my pocket change at the end of the day (it can accommodate all coins up to and including quarters). It took me about 8 years to fill it the first time, and according to the Coin-Star machine at the local market the total was just shy of $950. It's taken me over 20 years to get it almost full again, which shows you how much the use of coins has declined in the digital age. Here's a photo of the bottle as it sits on my shelf today:
Like others, I have no use for coins anymore — even a nickel candy bar (yeah, I'm THAT old) costs more than buck these days! Instead for the last 29 years I've dumped all of the change I received into a giant wine bottle that I got when I was president of my professional group. The executive board of the organization met in Cincinnati in the fall of 1991, and we ate dinner one night in a local Italian restaurant. We spotted the bottle sitting on a shelf and, being a bunch of winos, inquired about it. The waiter told us it was a double magnum (i.e., 3-liters), which we thought would be sufficient as a starter for the eight of us. We negotiated a bit and IIRC got the bottle for $150, which was a bargain when we discovered that it was actually 5 liters, not just 3. Anyway, as the president of the organization, I got to keep the empty bottle, which has been on my closet shelf ever since, right where I can dump my pocket change at the end of the day (it can accommodate all coins up to and including quarters). It took me about 8 years to fill it the first time, and according to the Coin-Star machine at the local market the total was just shy of $950. It's taken me over 20 years to get it almost full again, which shows you how much the use of coins has declined in the digital age. Here's a photo of the bottle as it sits on my shelf today:
I have a similar story......my total was over 2200.......that me and my kids rolled......well, mostly the kids Got all the rolls for free from the bank......sure as hell am not going to BUY change rolls LOL! And wasn't willing to dole out the 12% to coinstar haha.
I have a similar story......my total was over 2200.......that me and my kids rolled......well, mostly the kids Got all the rolls for free from the bank......sure as hell am not going to BUY change rolls LOL! And wasn't willing to dole out the 12% to coinstar haha.
I considered rolling them myself, but I really hated doing that. When I was a kid my parents took a trip to NYC to visit my sister, leaving me home with my other sister. I was into coin collecting, so my dad brought me a $50 bag of pennies from the bank to keep me occupied. It took me several days to go through the 5,000 coins (I did find a few keepers), and then I had to roll the damn things to take them back to the bank. I might have done it anyway had I realized how much was in that wine bottle, but back then CoinStar fee then was "only" 8.9%. Time is money, as they say.
When I had coins many years past I took them to my favorite bank teller and she dumped them in a machine which counted and wrapped them then credited my account.
Of course I never go to the bank now days because all of my transactions are online (even depositing checks I receive).
I considered rolling them myself, but I really hated doing that. When I was a kid my parents took a trip to NYC to visit my sister, leaving me home with my other sister. I was into coin collecting, so my dad brought me a $50 bag of pennies from the bank to keep me occupied. It took me several days to go through the 5,000 coins (I did find a few keepers), and then I had to roll the damn things to take them back to the bank. I might have done it anyway had I realized how much was in that wine bottle, but back then CoinStar fee then was "only" 8.9%. Time is money, as they say.
Haha!
Did I mention the quarters were 1870 of that figure! I'll remember that for a while
Never was a collector of coins though.......I've always used cash and have lots of change left over.......1 bills too! But that's another story......
07-04-2020, 05:39 PM
? No seriously, like others have said, I don't keep coins in the car or on my person. I have a little bit of cash in my wallet (bills) for the rare occasion when a business is cash only. If I receive loose change back, I either drop it in the tip jar or keep it in my pocket until I'm home where it goes into a coin jar. From there once every couple of years I take it to a Coinstar. All my transactions are otherwise digital, either Apple Pay/Cash, PayPal, Venmo or credit card, and for parking I pay using phone apps or credit card and I use the Shell app to pay for gas. Who still wants to deal with metal currency? At the moment, nobody wants to touch cash anyway. Most businesses around here have gone to touchless payment, or disinfect the credit card you are handing them or make the customer swipe or stick the credit card into the chip reader. I would also refuse taking cash or coins from anybody at the moment. The cash I currently have in my wallet has gone untouched since February. All my credit cards now support tap&pay as well, but I always use my phone anyway.
