Many years ago, my Uncle Buddy gave me a ceramic piggy bank. It’s pretty small, as piggy banks go, so it doesn’t take long to fill it up. Still, it takes me about a year, as often as I remember to feed it.
I usually empty it this time of year, take the coins to one of those coin machines and get a nice little piece of cash. It’s found money after all, so I try and spend it as frivolously as possible.
About four years ago, the accounting industry launched a public awareness campaign called “Feed the Pig.” In partnership with the Ad Council, the accounting profession’s national association developed the campaign in an effort to encourage personal saving. At the time of the launch, while working on a financial literacy project, I became acquainted with spokespig Benjamin Banks (get it?) and decided to start feeding my own little oinker.
Check out Feed the Pig – It’s still chock full of good information, including a Habit-Breaking Help section that addresses, among other dangers, Shoe Addiction. Be sure to click on Benjamin’s face when you arrive, but also take some time to take the Beat Your Brain quiz. You’ll get to know your financial self a little better.
After all this evangelizing, I am going to take a taste of my own slop and try to save more. Charging for purchases, even shoes, doesn’t warm the heart the way saving does.
And thanks, Uncle Buddy, wherever you are. I just came home with $33.34 in free money.
Word Nymph 
Tom and I use the change jar as the vacation fund. It is used to buy gas for the boat or for pina coladas! Tom saves in two jars, one for pennies only and one for all other coins. I just throw them all in together, usually in an empty See’s Almond Royal can, it makes a great sound when you shake it.
I’d be tempted to use it to buy more See’s Almond Royal! And so the spiral continues.
I feed a red glass dish on my bedroom chest. Like you, I take the coins to Coinstar about once a year. I’m taking some today, in fact. Coincidence? I think not! 🙂
We cashed in $1,250 last year – you should have seen the heads turn in the grocery store when we brought in our orange Home Depot bucket (the big glass jar we had been saving in broke, which is why we cashed out when we did) – and got new bedroom furniture!
OK, I now think my first order of business is to get myself a larger bank.
I had a little different approach. About 15 years ago on a car trip down south I bought a 2 1/2 foot tall plastic Coke bottle bank at South of the Border, a tourist trap on I 95. I formed the habit of dumping all the coins in my pocket at the end of each day in the bottle. I think it took about 5 to 7 years to fill it up, and it was so heavy I couldn’t even move it. So, I had to dump the coins into bags to take them to the bank to get them counted. The bottle yielded $800. Just from spare change!