Are you sitting on £500 in loose change?

You could be “quite literally be sitting on a goldmine when it comes to … loose change”, at least according to Asda Money. 

Why? Because according to their research families leave an average of £10.20 in loose change lying around every week, adding up to more than £500 over a year.

Of course, the research raises a few questions. Literally sitting on a goldmine? Where on earth would you pan for this gold? Please don’t answer that. But they had my interest – I could always do with £500.

And then that got me curious – so I went on a loose change hunt.

We’re going on a coin hunt

Most of my loose change finds its way into a large jar that I occasionally empty out and take to the bank. A few years ago I ransacked the jar and found it had more than £80 in it, so since then I have been fairly regular about sorting through the stash.

It seemed like a good place to start, so I emptied it out and found a decent £11.42. Decent, but a far cry from £500.

The sofas yielded a further 16p, and I found a whole £3.21 in my eldest son’s toy chest (this is not stealing, this is reclaiming! His money goes straight in the bank, those coins are mine). My car provided a mere 3p, not exactly a California goldfield.

The research also said that 52% of women find cash at the bottom of their handbags. I don’t carry a handbag, I carry a vast nappy bag - stuffed with baby stuff - but emptying that did give me 62p.

So, so far my total haul was £15.44, of which only £4.02 was actually lost money. Then, I decided to check the draw I keep my purse in and papers in.

The big drawer

Jackpot! There was no cash at all in my big drawer, but I found more than £40 in Tesco Clubcard vouchers, that go out of date in just a month and a half.

I had completely forgotten those vouchers, so I am quids in, thanks to my loose change hunt.

What did I learn?

I already know to keep my shrapnel in one place and regularly deposit it in the bank, so I’m not losing money around the house. But this has reminded me to have regular sort-outs of my piles of papers and drawers of correspondence, so I don’t risk wasting vouchers in the future.

One thing that did shock me was ASDA’s research suggesting that 4% of respondents actually throw away their small change rather than carrying it around. It takes no effort at all to chuck it into a jar, and it really does add up fast.

The best way to spend my haul

If I’d gathered in the mythical £500, I could have paid a large chunk of our summer holiday - so I admit to being slightly disappointed with my £15.44 worth of coins. Of course, it’s actually almost £60 if I count the vouchers too – and they mean I will spend less on my next weekly shop, so technically I can spend an extra £60 of cash.

That’s a decent surprise windfall and I wanted to spend it wisely. I’ve looked at the best way to spend a tenner in the past, and recognised that saving that much extra in the bank or paying it off the mortgage each month can really make a difference.

I also thought about spending it on non-perishable groceries so that we have some spare supplies in the house (a so-called ‘edible emergency fund’) but I think that risks just being swallowed up, if you’ll excuse the bad joke.

No, I think I’ll add it to our emergency savings, you can never have too much money in your rainy day fund. Actually, maybe I’ll make that £40. I think we’ll treat ourselves to a curry too; it is a windfall after all.

What do you do with your shrapnel? What would you do with an extra £60? Have your say using the comments below