Money Jar

Money jar is what a youngster would call a piggy bank. The piggy bank concept is that instead of spending money you are given or earned,  you save it by putting it into a piggy bank. For adults, this means putting any change you receive into the money jar so as not to spend it, and the amount builds up over time. After a while, the idea would be to deposit the contents of the money jar into a savings account where it would now earn interest.

There was a time I would take my money jar to the bank and they would gladly accept all those coins. Nowadays, services like coinstar charges you a service fee of almost 10% to count your money so that you can then deposit into your own account! To be fair, coinstar does give you the option to receive a gift card instead of cash. When you choose this option, then the fee is waived.

Is using a money jar still worth it?

The answer is still yes. You can conlude that without the money jar you would end up with no savings at all, versus retaining 90% of what was in the jar. You can also try locating a Credit Union that you could join. My Credit Union does have a coinstar machine but they do not charge if you deposit the coins into your account with them.  I also use the coins to pay for stamps, vending machine purchases (when desperate as these are expensive purchases)and highway tolls. You can also use these as allowances, bus fares, token purchases, small grocery purchases (Think convenience stores) and more. There are still a lot of places that will accept coins even if your bank does not.

Money Jar Alternatives

The concept has been brought into another level by some banks (notably Bank of America) that allow you to round-up your debit card purchases to the nearest whole dollar amount, and they then deposit this roundup to either a checking or savings account. Bank of America even matches your deposit. This serves as your money jar and it is suppose to help you save money in the long run. But does it really? Depends. There is a limit to what the banks will match. There are also fees (remember those) that could be lurking, potentially costing you more than you save.