I hate change. No, I’m not talking about progress. I’m talking about coins, pocket change, the stuff that makes an incessant jingle and yet seems unable to provide any sort of purchasing power in recent times. The amount of things that one can buy for less than a dollar are on a slim list, an even slimmer one when you try to count which of those things would actually be useful. Ultimately, very few people probably like pocket change, and yet we all receive it. Rarely do our purchases amount to break-even at exact dollar amounts and so we’re left with change. 20 cents here, 42 cents there, 76 cents, 52 cents, 11 cents. Dimes, nickles, quarters and pennies pile up in our pockets and we find cheap, easy ways to get rid of them: tips, small donations, etc… While giving a tip or donating the money isn’t a bad idea, saving your change is yet another way to make the most of your money, especially if money is tight. I remember watching my father keep a cup where he would deposit his change, when it got full he would sort the change out and wrap it up in coin wrappers and bring it to the bank. Like returning bottles for coin deposits, it may often feel like you should get more for your change than you end up with, but, in the end, the result is more cash than you often realized you had. As with just about anything I’ve suggested or recommended so far, the key with this is simply to remember. It’s easy to forget and to simply dump your excess change somewhere quickly. Having its weight in our pockets can be oddly less comforting than it should be, some people even simply say “keep the change” in order to avoid dealing with those coins later. What I’m suggesting is to be consciously mindful of your change and to remember to save it. Don’t like it in your pockets? Find a place in your wallet or purse to put it. My dad often ended up keeping the change in his car, and would then transfer it from the car to his cup when he got home. Change can be annoying and tedious, it can take up time to count it all when you’re sorting it later, but being smart about it will certainly help in the long run. Remember to use the coin wrappers I mentioned earlier. You can even, if you so desire, purchase machines to do it automatically for you, all you do is pour the coins in and it sorts them out. Either way, simply using the wrappers, manually or automatically, will save you a lot of time and headaches from counting and then recounting to double check. Getting right in your personal finance is rarely about huge financial decisions that you make. It’s often an accumulation of these small little ways to save and gather up your resources for maximum efficiency. When you add them all up together you end up with a whole worth noting and something worth banking on. My earlier example is an easy amount of change you could get from a simple bit of shopping, especially if you like to visit numerous grocery stores when shopping for your groceries, for instance, and, all totaled up it amounts to 2 extra dollars in your pocket. Doesn’t seem like much? Add it up over the course of a month or a couple months. It only costs you a little bit of your time and your memory, and the reward is extra money in your pocket.