Counting coins in Canberra?

How about instead of counting it, you sell tickets to an event where you throw the entire lot of coins onto the ground in Garema Place at lunchtime, and watch the chuggers fight the beggars for it. You could even pick up a few bucks running a book on who bashes who.

Spoono said :

I had what turned out to be $310 of change in a bucket. I took it to Westpac in Petrie Plaza to count and apparently they don’t have coin counting machines anymore. They weigh denominations instead. I had to sit in a room and make small bags of individual denominations to weigh, took me and my wife about 30mins.

Awesome – $350 for 30 mins work. That works out to $1.5 million per year (ignoring tax) — Thats a decent wage!

astrojax said :

does woolies (or coles/supabarn) take 5c coins too?

(from memory, as i no longer live in dickson) coles did accept 5c pieces.

I had trouble yesterday at superbarn, i did have a few 5c pieces rejected (but i dont think all of them?)

does woolies (or coles/supabarn) take 5c coins too? i am always offended when businesses refuse a coin of the realm – and have buckets of these little critters!

When you do your shopping at coles/bigW or superbarn – use the self serve checkout. I’ve used $25 in coins and yet to break the machine. Every month i take my (bag of) coins with me on the shop and use it instead.

(FYI the superbarn machine isn’t great as it feeds change out in 10c pieces for amounts less than $1)

http://cgi.ebay.com.au/BRAND-NEW-AUSTRALIAN-MONEY-CASH-COIN-COUNTER-SORTER-/260746160015?pt=AU_VendingMachines&hash=item3cb5aea78f

Take your piles of coins to the nearest licensed Club, tell them its for the Pokies, and either take it as notes or run it into a machine and immediately cash out.
No fees, no lines.

bugger. i use the gold coins as real cash while the rest, for the most part, languish as mere nuisance… 🙂

astrojax said :

does anyone know of the pokies club angle? i might pop into the tradies and ask and if i do i shall report back…

The clubs will happily take $1 coins off your hands, as long as theyre pre-sorted and you only give them $1 coins in the bag. Pokies dont take anything other than $1 coins so they have no need to sort/count other amounts.

thanks t-s, and others. astromonkey is as yet too wee to count much at all, let lone myriad coinage – and far too wee to have sired grand-astromonkeys! and alas, i have no friends (present company excluded, mai oui!) and even lightweight ch9 disturbs me too much to consider, but i take the point.

does anyone know of the pokies club angle? i might pop into the tradies and ask and if i do i shall report back…

You only really have to sort them into different denominations and pile up 10 coins the same.Make other piles of 10 the same height and then count the piles….

My advice which from the tone of your post you will probably dismiss anyway is…

…and this may come as a shock…

…and if you’re one of the instant gratification me me me generation won’t please you…

…sit at your kitchen table and do it yourself.

Believe it or not it’s a very relaxing and in some ways satisfying activity. It provides just a little mental exercise to add to your repertoire, it aids in dexterity, and if you have a friend (apologies if you don’t, it’s just that most of us do) you can idly chatter away in real life instead of on facebook for the time it takes to count the coins. If you don’t have any friends, a lightweight CH9 show, perhaps an American canned-laughter sitcom would make a nice background to the task at hand, as you would only need to occasionally glance at the screen to get the whole hilarious story.

Then, when you have rolled the rolls or bagged the bags, you can triumphantly take them to your credit union teller, who will probably advise you that they will check them later and credit your account once they’ve been verified, and you say thankyou and walk out, richer not only in monetary terms, but also in your self, and your interactions with someone outside the LCD screen in front of you.

1) Get mate with CBA account to get them to cash coins in and deposit into his account
2) Recieve deposit slip from CBA teller lady
3) Get mate to transfer $ shown on deposit reciept to your account

You could ask a family member or friend who has a bank account to get it deposited into their account for free then get the money off them.

I used to sort my money into denomination bags and take them into the bank, if the money is sorted they simply weigh it and give you the cash on the spot. You pay a 10% fee if you make them work, weighing bags is no work.

FioBla said :

I used to use the self checkouts at Coles, when I was in Sydney. Those accept large amounts of coins.

Another option is pizza delivery guys.. in my pizza delivery days I’d often get paid in a bag of coins

A $20 dollar set of electronic kitchen scales works perfectly eg $1 in 10c coins is 51grams ,a pile of them at 1020 grams divided by 51 is $20 and so on.

I used to use the self checkouts at Coles, when I was in Sydney. Those accept large amounts of coins.

I had what turned out to be $310 of change in a bucket. I took it to Westpac in Petrie Plaza to count and apparently they don’t have coin counting machines anymore. They weigh denominations instead. I had to sit in a room and make small bags of individual denominations to weigh, took me and my wife about 30mins.

Get a small set of jewellers scales, work out what each bag should weigh and start piling coins in – it’s easy. Banks will give you the bags for free, but they will probably charge you for counting coins. Something to do while you’re watching the idiot box.

NAB has a coin swap facility at their Woden, City and Gungahlin branches. Free if you have an account, but an amazing 10% of the value if you don’t deposit into an NAB account!
The Commonwealth Bank also has some in a number of their local branches – not sure of the fees they charge.

Ask the kids/grandkids to do it.

That’s exactly what our grandparents used us for when we were small children – although it was counting pennies in those days, and then 1c and 2c pieces later on. Our cut was a bag of lollies EACH (maximum was a 10c bag – a big deal in the days of 1/4c lollies).