We are ordinary working class people. We get by, living from paycheck to paycheck for most part. We have no credit cards and end up spending just about every cent we have, including the coins that accumulate throughout the week that we keep in a green can on hubby’s dresser. Every week, on Thursday or Friday, my husband will have no money left. At that point he will empty out the tall coin can that lives on his dresser and take the contents to the Stop & Shop up the street and convert the coins to cash. There, he uses the Coinstar machine to convert the coins into bills, which he can then take to the gas station. This is something that’s gone on for a couple of years now. I think a lot of people have coins that they’d like to convert, if they don’t already. I mean, we don’t all walk around holding all of our change because change is heavy. I’d guess that most people do like we do, and at the end of the day put the coins into a jar or bottle or something similar.
This past week when he went up there he mentioned the user fees for cashing out. I told him that there is no fee if you cash out with a Stop & Shop gift card, something I actually only learned a week or so ago. He offered to go to the store with me for some last minute items from our grocery list, some of which we needed for our weekend trip and some for this week’s menu plan. I try to always bring the grocery list with me to the grocery store, because my goal is saving money and I spend less when I shop from a list. I usually shop alone by choice but how could I pass up a rare invite. I grabbed the week’s list from the front of the fridge and off we went to our nearby Stop & Shop.
We live practically next door to a Stop & Shop so it’s convenient. While it isn’t my primary grocery store it’s unusual if we aren’t in the store about once a week. The Coinstar service itself is convenient because it’s located right inside the grocery store. You can just bring your change with you when you go to the store and convert it, and then spend it inside the store.
Coinstar features a number of cashout options including cash voucher, gift card, and Stop & Shop gift card. The cash voucher option is accompanied by a fee of almost $0.10 per dollar. The signage displays that there is no fee for cashing out with a Stop & Shop gift card, but doesn’t mention that cashing out with the other gift cards imposes no fee either. I didn’t know until this past week that you could cash out with a Stop & Shop gift card and not pay those fees.
When we went to the store I wanted to convert our coins and go with the Stop & Shop gift card option. We couldn’t figure out how to choose the Stop & Shop gift card, so we asked at the Customer Service desk. Unfortunately, one of the customer service reps informed us they’d had to take the Stop & Shop gift card option offline for a few days to work out some glitches. So, we were stuck paying the conversion fee this time around.
The machine is easy to use.
First you put your coins into the machine.
The machine adds up the money.
W/hen you cash out you can choose a cash voucher, Stop & Shop gift card, or other gift card. I think that cashing out with a Stop & Shop gift card is a smart move. By choosing this cash out option you get a few more dollars to spend in the store. We all have coins. We could all use a couple of extra dollars. Why not convert the coins for free and save a couple of bucks?
I did my usual grocery store routine. No matter what grocery store I’m or what I’m buying (unless I;m in a big hurry) I like to go up and down all of the food aisles. I made my way through the store, getting some items we needed for this week as well as some items we needed for our road trip this past weekend.
Then I headed to the checkout.
At the register you can choose how to pay, including with the Stop & Shop gift card. The only thing I don’t like about Stop & Shop’s checkout is that if you forget your rewards card you don’t have a way to look it up at the register. By using the generic store card the purchase doesn’t register on your rewards card, making it not count towards certain promotions. Other stores allow the customer to look up their rewards number by phone number right at the checkout, I wish Stop & Shop would do that also.
As far as the Coinstar service, I think it works well. I have one suggestion for the service and one for our store. It’d be neat if at some point in the future rather than convert to a Stop & Shop gift card if you could just convert and have the money put onto your shopper rewards card. (After they enable accessing the rewards crd if you forget it of course.) Also, in our Stop & Shop, the Coinstar machine is near the entrance and exit to the store, however it is not directly in the entry path of the store. You actually need to head into the exit to go to the Coinstar machine. If you didn’t know it was there you probably wouldn’t see the machine until you were on your way out of the store. If I wanted to increase visibiliy I’d have the machine visible from the entrance.
Be sure to check out my Google + story on Coinstar to see what the machine looks like, how it works, and what else I did in the store.
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I have been paid (at Coinstar’s request) to try and blog about Coinstar’s products/services as a part if a Collective Bias shoppers insights study. All opinions are my own.
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