Ten minutes to gather up the change.

                Ode to  the change jar. Nah, I can't write poetry. My husband And I have this jar... an enormous jar that once I think held pickles. It's big. I think we bought those pickles from Costco. Now you know how big the jar is.  After the jar was empty we decided  it could be a great change jar. We kept it under the counter and every now and then would empty our pockets and in my case an extremely cluttered purse and mindlessly tink, tink, tink the change would fall into the change jar. Fast forward to when we decided to take our first family trip to Disney. Right before our trip we experienced a unexpected money crises (with us cars and big appliances always break down when its close to Christmas or right before a trip). We couldn't cancel the trip.. the flights we already paid for, but if we went this meant that we were going to be short of cash for the first two days on our vacation (until direct deposit would have our pay checks). Now if you have ever gone to Disney you know that everything there cost twice as much as you think it might. Sometimes even three times as much. "Hey what about the change jar?" I asked. "We should cash it in." I added thinking that we would get a bit of cushion money until we got paid. So off we went to cash in the enormous glass jar. I have to admit I was a bit embarrassed. In order to avoid rolling the coins we walked into the local supermarket (where they had one of those Coin Star Machines) only to find that we had to wait while two other people changed their coins. It was sort like a club.. a "Need Money Now" club. I thought we would get maybe a hundred dollars or so. Turns out we were able to pay for most the hotel bill with what was in that jar! From then on we lovingly called it our vacation jar and have used it from time to time to help with expenses for a family get-a-ways. Now since we are experts we just take it to the bank that has a coin machine of their own and they don't charge a fee per dollar.On our last camping trip we bought the groceries with it! I've even gotten friends to use one too. My friend recently cashed in her tiny jar that she keeps on her kitchen table and got $167.00! So today I took ten minutes to go through all my purses and deposited all the change in the jar. Mickey.....I'll see you next year!