Today I counted the change I’d been saving for about two months. The change I’d discounted as annoying and trivial added up to $35. Crazy, right?
Yet, it isn’t so crazy when I think about how 90 percent of my transactions result in change. For the past two months instead of letting that loose change stay loose, I saved it, and I ended up with a substantial amount of my money back. Saving or giving the change of our transactions can really make a difference, either in the world or in personal lives.
Coin Up is a mobile app that provides a platform for donors to give to their favorite charitable causes effortlessly. Once downloaded and registered, the app will round up purchases made on your credit card or debit card and give the spare change to the person’s chosen charities. The app is free to use and has been designed to help people give monthly to charities they are passionate about, making it easy for their spare change to have a big impact.
“We all have spare change, and most of us see it as trivial, ” Leena Patidar, chief executive officer and co-founder of Coin Up, explained. “What people don’t realize is that the aggregation of this spare change is actually quite powerful. It adds up quickly, allowing for major effect, depending on how you want to use it.”
According to the Transportation Security Administration, there was over $531,000 worth of spare change left behind in the country’s airports just during 2012. Imagine what that much money could have done to help a charity, fund a personal venture, buy school supplies, and more. Spare change is not useless. Here are five things to keep in mind as the change begins to pile up:
- Save for a family vacation. Many families find it challenging to pay for a vacation. Yet if they saved spare change throughout the year, putting it into a big bank in the closet, they may have $600 or more at the end of the year. I ended up with around $35 in two months with only myself contributing. With change from the whole family or even just a significant other, funding a modest vacation or staycation is perfectly plausible!
- Keep saving it. If you put all of your spare change into a bank in the closet, and then once per year, half year, or month you cash it out and add it to a savings account at the bank (or invest it), you will be building a nice fund for retirement. Even saving a few hundred dollars per year, this will add up to a nice payday once retirement hits and the money has all been compounded in the bank.
- Pay it forward. Use your spare change to bless someone else. Use the change in your car’s change tray to buy someone else’s coffee. Use the change you and your family hoard to buy a coat for the homeless man you pass on the road. Doing something kind like this will benefit many people, including you.
- Eliminate debt. In our society, most people carry around some debt, whether from credit cards, automobile payments, or student loans. Save up the spare change, and every time it adds up to $25-50, pay off a little bit more debt. Over time, those extra payments add up and help eliminate debt quicker.
- Give to your favorite charity. Everyone has a cause they are passionate about. Giving spare change to a favorite cause or charity helps lift our hearts and leads to a better world. Apps such as Coin Up have helped make giving spare change to one’s chosen charity effortless. By downloading the app and choosing a charity to donate to, your purchases are rounded up to the nearest dollar, with the change going to your chosen charity each month.
“We know the impact and power that spare change can have on society,” added Coin Up co-founder and chief technology officer, Scott Graham. “That’s why Coin Up is revolutionary, because we are creating a society that can easily engage in charitable giving through the convenience of every day transactions by taking incremental spare change from your daily credit/debit card transactions and donating it to the charity of your choice.”
The Coin Up app is free to download. All users do is download the app to register, choose a cause they are passionate about, put in their payment source, and set a monthly limit. The spare change from their transactions (at stores, restaurants, or that daily coffee) will automatically be given to their chosen charities. The app provides a secure way for people to control their monthly charity donation amount, and provides for a tax-deductible donation. For more information on the Coin Up app, visit this website or download it today on the Apple App Store.
YOUR CHANGE. YOUR IMPACT. Download the @CoinUpApp today.
