Last time we dropped off a jug of change at our local charitable organization, the people there mentioned that they now preferred receiving bills. Apparently, they're getting charged for counting coin donations.

With that in mind, we brought our family's donation box over to Coinstar today. We used their locator service to find a nearby machine, which turns out to be at our local Albertson's.

Since Coinstar charges a fairly hefty 8.9% counting fee, we opted to cash out in an iTunes gift card and donate the equivalent amount in bills. With iTunes, you get a 100% transfer of funds; no fees. We brought over our pennies, nickles, and dimes in a cup. (No quarters, mind you. They're too handy. I personally bought out all the quarters from the jar in advance.)

This was the first time I ever used Coinstar, and I was surprised to learn that you can load bills directly into the machine as well as coins in order to build up a gift certificate. Given that you can buy pretty iTunes gift cards at the grocery's cash register no more than 10 feet away, I'm not entirely sure why people do this.

It took far longer to process our gift certificate than I expected. After pouring in the coins (the fun part!), we were there waiting for about 5-10 minutes. Finally, an iTunes gift certificate printed out and we were on our way.

The code was a bit longer than the normal redemption codes I'm used to. I entered it into iTunes and it worked fine. My account was credited immediately after.

Although the whole stand-and-wait portion was a bit annoying (my helper child got quite antsy), it's something I can easily see doing a few times a year. In the end, we are happy with our iTunes credit and the organization will be happy with the bills instead of the coins.

Ryan P sent us a nice tip about using Coinstar units to turn your spare change into iTunes apps. You've seen Coinstar at the grocery store before -- you throw your spare change in there, and then it spits out a receipt you can take to the service counter for cash (minus a little off the top for the counting). But Ryan told us Coinstar now offers gift certificates instead of cash, if you want, minus the coin counting charge.

And one of those certificates can be used at the iTunes store, which means you can throw your coins in, and instead of paying Coinstar to count them, get the full value of your change in an iTunes card. And since apps on the App Store are so cheap, you can use your former quarters and dimes to pick up some terrific apps (may we recommend Sketches, or maybe Pennies -- since you're so coin-conscious anyway). And considering that the amount Coinstar takes out is almost 9%, putting the money in an iTunes card (if you're going to buy the apps anyway) can be a nice chunk of change.

You may have seen those Coinstar machines in your local supermarket. Basically, they turn the coins you've collected in your change jar into bills (for a small fee, usually 8.9%). Recently, they've added a few non-cash alternatives for you to choose from, like charitable donations and prepaid gift cards. Most recently, iTunes gift cards have been thrown into the mix. Toss in your coins and out pops a gift card, all ready to go. Sounds like a good "I-need-a-gift-right-now" solution.

Unfortunately, none of the machines in my area are currently offering iTunes cards. You can use the official Coinstar Locater to check on your neighborhood.

[Via Infinite Loop]