[stevekemp]

I guess this might depend where you are.

When I lived in Scotland there was a "loose change" machine at the local Tesco. You pour in your coins and it would give you a receipt you could take to a cashier to get cash back - but the downside was that it charged you something like 10% of the total as a fee. Which I wouldn't pay.

Edit: I just searched and the Tesco documentation says "There is a 25p transaction fee and an 11.5% processing fee on the total amount of coins you put in the Coinstar centre. For charity donations, this processing fee is reduced to 8.9%." (wow, how generous!)

[tonyedgecombe]

I meant self service machines where you pay for your shopping. There are usually one or two that accept change.

[stevekemp]

Ahh, somehow I misunderstood. Thanks for the clarification!

[sowbug]

Same here in the US.

Back in the day, I'd sift through my jar of change and keep the quarters, which were good for parking meters and laundry. The rest went into the Coinstar machine. The fee for counting dimes, nickles, and pennies seemed OK.

The machine always had some weird foreign coins or subway tokens left over by the previous customer in the reject bin, which was potentially interesting.

[mrgoldenbrown]

FWIW in the US many of those machines offer to skip the fee if you take the money in the form of a gift card for Amazon or Walmart or similar.