Turning in loose change to your bank

[luther]

I have a bucket of loose coins. Has anyone ever turned a large quantity of unrolled change into their bank? I know there is a thread on this from about a year ago, but was hoping for update.

Edited February 24, 2016 by luther

[Lowriesuzanne]

Divide your coins into 3 buckets. Get rid of the large coins first. I keep a huge coin purse in my truck. I try to pay some bills with the change. Like 7/11 or McDonald's or KFC. Not in the grocery stores...I don't want to hold up the line. Near my 7/11, inside Payap U, there is a rice roll stand. I pay with the change. The fruit slice dealer gets my change. The cafeteria inside Payap University is happy to receive the exact amount for my tuna fish sandwich and carry out items. The tiny coins I weigh, bag, and use as dive weights in my BCD. An ounce less sometimes gives me perfect neutral buoyancy. I hate 4 lb weights in my weight pockets. I never wear a weight belt. I use soft weights and the bagged coins in the pockets built into my BCD. When I fly I put the soft weights and bags of tiny coins in my carry on bag. Sometimes my legs are "floaty". I am fantasizing about creating 1/4 lb ankle weights with tiny Thai coins. I have commercial one lb ankle weights which are filled with sand. Too much weight. Good for lap swimming exercises, not for diving. Not a scuba diver? Take all your coins in your bucket to a Temple and donate them. Just place the bucket in front of an altar and light some incense, then sneak out. Too heavy? Make two trips to two Temples.

[sappersrest]

Give to your local school the less well of kids can use it as snack money.

[arunsakda]

Go to temple, make merit.

Give to mendicants.

Drop in Charity boxes.

You won't miss the dosh and it's good karma.

Edited February 24, 2016 by arunsakda

[true blue]

I give my satangs and small coins, To a beggar or blind people.

[NancyL]

Tops Supermarket will take satangs at the customer service counters. They seem happy to change them, which is good since they're a primary source of 'em, at least for me. They'll separate the big satangs from the little satangs and count them. I've never done this with a large quantity, just a handful at a time and stand there waiting while they count them.

[CMMCB]

To answer the OP, many banks charge a small amount for counting, but only about 1 baht per 1,000 if memory serves.

[mascarabertha]

every day I empty my pockets of change and i have two piggy banks.. At the end of the month my 11 yro son and 9 yro niece have the great pleasure of opening the piggy banks putting the different coins in zip lock bags and go to their banks where they have both opened bank accounts.

[KMartinHandyman]

My wife is my bank I give all change to. She uses the "small baht" to pay for many inexpensive things and fills in the needed amounts to keep me from breaking a larger bill when I spend.

[Deserted]

I changed up about 6000 baht once at the bank. You would have thought I'd come in to rob the place by the look on their faces when I told them I wanted to change the coins. It was too demeaning for them I think but nonetheless they obliged.

[NeverSure]

Do none of them have a coin separating and counting machine? It's fast and reads out a total. The bank employee pays the customer the amount the machine says, but nothing else is done until the machine is full. When it's full, another machine easily recounts and wraps each size coin. Our branches each had this equipment back in the 1970's, but it was of course analog.

[NancyL]

We've been thru this before on the Chiang Mai forum and no one has ever reported finding a coin sorting/counting machine in Chiang Mai and there are numerous reports of unhappy bank tellers when confronted with coins.

[jobin]

I sort my small coins, under 5 baht, and collect them. When i go for a massage at the Blind Massage place next to Santitham Police Box, i drop all the coins into the charity bin. All the proceeds then go to buy white canes for the blind folks. The 5 and 10 baht coins i use for the water machine and the clothes washing machine.

It's a great massage and no hanky-panky.

[NancyL]

Recently every member of our Rotary club received a cute ceramic owl "piggy" bank from the Rotary district governor. The idea is to deposit our loose change every day to fund service projects. It's called "The Power of Small Change". We're suppose to empty our owls at the end of each calendar quarter and bring the money to the meeting that week. We'll have our first change collection at the end of March and I'll let you know what our bank says. I have a feeling we may have a change counting party at a Rotary meeting one week.

[buddhalady]

Nancy - why shouldn't the Expats Club do the same as has Rotary - I've got mugs full of one baht coins and I'm sure I'm not alone in that!

[Sparkles]

We've been thru this before on the Chiang Mai forum and no one has ever reported finding a coin sorting/counting machine in Chiang Mai and there are numerous reports of unhappy bank tellers when confronted with coins.

Makro accept them at Mae Hia.In fact I was in the "express " lane near the alcohol section when a Thai guy,buying a single bottle of whisky, dumped a bag of one baht and satangs on her.

Took forever for her to count them and double check,she didnt say a word but obviously was not happy.

Never seen a coin counting machine even in Bangkok major branches.

Was told by a teller they wont phase out the satang ....part of Thai culture

[NancyL]

Nancy - why shouldn't the Expats Club do the same as has Rotary - I've got mugs full of one baht coins and I'm sure I'm not alone in that!

We'll see how it goes with the first quarter collection that the Rotary club does with the donations from it's members. Then we may be coming to the Expats Club members and asking if they'd like to donate their small change to Rotary, or maybe we'd do something with more owls (they're made at a ceramics factory in Lampang owned by a Rotary member) or whatever. We've been toying with this "Power of Small Change" project for a while. It's popular with Rotary clubs overseas, but coin counting machines are more common overseas.

[augustwest]

All of our coins go to our dog,she's now worth 5000b and only 11/2 years old. If this keeps going the dog will have more than me 55555

[northernjohn]

The wife has two Granddaughters that go to school.

they appreciate it.

[buddhalady]

Nancy - I, and probably a number of others not in Rotary, would be happy to dump our bags of coins somewhere convenient to be picked up. Seems a shame to let what might be a useful total amount do nothing but sit in boxes and cups across this city and beyond! Yes, it's small change to us ....but....sooner is better than 'thinking about it'

[naboo]

Temple. One in the mountains if possible.

[LawrenceChee]

I use it the same way seperate out the 5/10 baht and pay bills at 7-11 , snack shops etc

The remaining smaller ones I collect in a small tray and drop them off charity boxes when they are filled

[canathai8]

We've been thru this before on the Chiang Mai forum and no one has ever reported finding a coin sorting/counting machine in Chiang Mai and there are numerous reports of unhappy bank tellers when confronted with coins.

Unhappy, but usually very sexy.. .. at least at my Siam bank..

I try not to look at them

[Gonsalviz]

I used to keep it stashed (pretty much thought of it as a waste of time) but later found out I can pay for a lot of things with it. Now my gf gets it and pays a lot of stuff with it but I live in Isan. Money goes further.

[MadMac]

Wife complained last time I used some 25 and 50 Satang coins at Tesco. Who cares. Just use them, it's currency.

[ricklev]

At some point in every thread related to finding a place that counts coins, someone will say that they know of a bank counts them for a certain amount of commision, but nobody will ever reveal the name and exact location of that mythical bank.

Prove me wrong!

Edited February 25, 2016 by ricklev

[naboo]

Every bank will accept them, but you need to count them into bags first.

eg. 10B of 25 satang coins, 10B of 50 satang coins, 40B of 1B coins, 200B of 5B coins, 300B of 10B coins.

Then get yourself down the beer shop and you'll get 5B change for a case of Chang.

[Trujillo]

Bangkok Bank at Meechok Plaza has taken, very reluctantly, 50 and 25 satang coins, unsorted from me. A lot of them.

I try to pay some bills with the change. Like 7/11 or McDonald's or KFC. Not in the grocery stores...I don't want to hold up the line.

I don't get it; it's okay to hold up the line at 7-Eleven or McDonalds or KFC but not in grocery stores. What's the difference?

[TommyTucker]

Only last week a made a deposit to our local SCB bank of notes as well as a bag of shrapnel (over 500 baht).

The lovely young lady duly counted all the shrapnel, adding it to the notes and credited our accounts.

The young lady did not mind, shake her head or complain.

The bank is in Silom, Bangkok and their staff have always been very obliging.

As someone has already mentioned all TV'ers could donate their shrapnel into one bank account and help a charity less fortunate than ourselves.

[mr chow]

Really?? This is really a thread.