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I work a lot of hours a day and am a slave to vending machine food.I take quarters and dimes to work and always make sure I overpay any item ending in 5 to get a nickle back in change(bag of chips 55 cents? 6 dimes in. soda 1.50? dollar bill, 1 quarter, 3 dimes. tasty junkfood and a nickle back! life is good someone tell me how insane I am!

ah somedays i miss vending machine snacks...

youre just as insane as i once was !

if only those machines took zinc pennies !

You are not alone.

I've been hitting up my local store for chocolate bars - and getting back 9 cents in change.

I do the same thing at work when I get a coffee. I never use exact change at the machines.
I have gotten back several pure .999 nickels over the past months.

15 years ago at a previous employer, I scored a silver quarter and silver dime at the vending machines there.

The vending machine will sell me a bag of pork rinds for $0.85, but for $0.90 I can get that bag of pork rinds and a small bullion round worth just over $0.05.

Way to go man! Use every opportunity to collect nickel and copper!

penny pretty wrote:I work a lot of hours a day and am a slave to vending machine food.I take quarters and dimes to work and always make sure I overpay any item ending in 5 to get a nickle back in change(bag of chips 55 cents? 6 dimes in. soda 1.50? dollar bill, 1 quarter, 3 dimes. tasty junkfood and a nickle back! life is good someone tell me how insane I am!

I once bought a .75 bag chips because I'd heard that the machine was giving its change in nickels.

When my wife is at work she pays for lunch so that she'll get a nickel back in change. This is touching since she hates doing any math.

Are you insane? Possibly. But you are most definitely not alone.

That's funny. I always use a dollar at vending machines, in hopes that whatever I get back will be silver...
On the other hand, at registers, I always try to use a handful of zincs, as a mini source of disposal.

you are not alone. I must confess that I feed enough zinc pennies into the self checkout at the supermarket so I can get a nickel and 4 pennies out as part of my change.

PMLurker wrote:you are not alone. I must confess that I feed enough zinc pennies into the self checkout at the supermarket so I can get a nickel and 4 pennies out as part of my change.

I often carry rolls of zinc in the Brinks plastic wraps and use one to pay for morning soda at gas station or McD's. They do not mind at all.

mutiger

penny pretty wrote:I work a lot of hours a day and am a slave to vending machine food.I take quarters and dimes to work and always make sure I overpay any item ending in 5 to get a nickle back in change(bag of chips 55 cents? 6 dimes in. soda 1.50? dollar bill, 1 quarter, 3 dimes. tasty junkfood and a nickle back! life is good someone tell me how insane I am!

I have told some cashiers to give me my change in nickels. They do a double take, ask me if I'm sure, but they do end up giving me my change in nickels or mostly nickels.

"life is good someone tell me how insane I am!"

I don't like using the word insane, how about "unwise". Pretty penny and others posting re junk foods: With all due respect, sorry to be the bearer of bad news- info you probably already know but don't consider: You're doing all this smart hoarding- and all this dumb eating. From an unhealthy lifestyle you're possibly going to develop a food related disease some day. Your life is possibly going to be shorter, less time to hoard, less time to enjoy the spoils of your hoarding efforts, less time with your kids and grandkids.
Heart disease, cancer, diabetes II, obesity, alzheimer's, shall I go on?

If you are what you eat, and you eat junk foods, what does that make you?

You're possibly going to have to someday use the profits of your hoarding to pay for expensive doctor visits and expensive pills. Is this what you want to use that money for? Pills have harmful side effects and don't heal the disease- it's like putting a band-aid on a cut that never heals.
Want to avoid pain, discomfort? Ever think about how a heart attack would feel? How about chemo?
Wouldn't you rather spend the profits of your hoarding on something enjoyable? Wouldn't you rather use some to pass on to your kids?

Your choice of what you eat and drink, your right, I understand.

There are many other smart ways to get your pennies and nickels. Something to think about.

Posted with the best intentions.

The way things are going - I'm just glad to get a chocolate bar at all. At sale pricing, it will usually sell out long before a weekly special expires.

I say enjoy the junk food while it lasts, because things are only going to get more expensive and harder to get next year.

Spend the cotton, get what you want back, and a few coins as well. Best thing you can hope for.

The cents we like to save are 5% zinc and the rest good copper. So I'm 5% "junk" and the rest is good stuff. I don't eat a lot of vending machine stuff, but when I do, I try to get that nickel. I save any all my nickels and copper cents from change.

I hear ya 50 cent..but untill we get a celery-stick machine at work, or an obamacare health insurance machine that spits out nickels, I am stuck with my diet mountain dew and chili cheeese fritos!

HaHa... I think I go to the extreme... whenever I pay for groceries with my debit card, I always ask for $0.09 back... The teller always looks at me with this crazy look, and then I proceed to ask them for the brown pennies, not the shiny ones.

OtusLotus wrote:HaHa... I think I go to the extreme... whenever I pay for groceries with my debit card, I always ask for $0.09 back... The teller always looks at me with this crazy look, and then I proceed to ask them for the brown pennies, not the shiny ones.

I always ask for brown (sometimes I say older and specify "before 1980") Pennies.
Also, don't forget to ask for "dirty" Nickles, I've gotten Ag more than once that way, and it gives you a chance to look at the Pennies you just got so you can ask to trade the zinkers for another chance at Cu.

If I get asked, I say I collect old coins.

I found a soda machine the other day giving .40 cents in nickels change for a $1.00, so I bought 5 sodas

OtusLotus wrote:HaHa... I think I go to the extreme... whenever I pay for groceries with my debit card, I always ask for $0.09 back... The teller always looks at me with this crazy look, and then I proceed to ask them for the brown pennies, not the shiny ones.

Awesome! I love the creativity of this approach and it all adds up!