Coinage

We are leaving for Chicago soon! YEA!! I decided to bring the kids along due to an incredible airfare deal that I found on Delta. The girls are thrilled, but since they didn't have much notice that we were going on a trip they were unable to 'save up' some spending cash. The woes of going to American Girl with no money..... SO being my smart and wonderful self I told my girls that they could collect change around the house and use it for their spending money on the trip. I am now wishing I could eat those words. My lovely girls have managed to scrounge up quite a little kitty. We spent last night rolling nickles, dimes and quarters that they have found in closets, jars, bags, purses, drawers, cushions, desks, etc. We then took the pennies (too numerous to count) to the Coinstar machine. Apparently, not counting the pennies was a good choice......

It took about 10 minutes to count all the pennies and the machine kept choking up we had so many. I took this photo about half way through the bucket. We actually ended up having over 6,500 pennies. Of course, Coinstart kept 8.9 per dollar, so we sacrificed a few dollars, but in the end we would have been counting pennies for about a year if not.

So $60 from pennies alone and then the total of all the silver coins was $216 and change!! I think I'm going to need to take out a loan from my kids! I suppose that next time I'll think before I speak. Of course, not as if $276 will take you far at American Girl....