Saturday, November 22, 2008

Penny pinching....

Today I took all my loose coins (in my piggy bank, from my desk at work and out of the car) down to the Coinstar machine (I don't have a bank account on the island, so couldn't change them in a bank) and made two big scores. 

First I had way more than I thought - having done some internet research I discovered that you can use Coinstar machines and get vouchers for things like Amazon and iTunes and not get charged for it counting your pennies. So i'd decided I would come away with probably a $20 amazon voucher, threw my money in there. I had $88 worth of pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters - woo hoo! So I paid the fee and ended up with $81 in cash - not the way I was going to go, but at this point $81 cash was more appealing than $88 on Amazon. Way to go desk drawer.

The second big discovery was Star Market - my god, how had I not walked in one before. It's a supermarket, but had way more choice than the local Safeway. They actually had a British section. I loved it, didn't buy much as I go away next friday, but enjoyed wandering - a good selection of organic foods too, average prices for Hawaii, but just having the choice is good. 

So I bought myself a few goodies (tofu, curry sauce, chocolate....the basics) and headed for a drive through the wet weather. Even down on Waikiki was wet, plenty of tourists wandering around in $1 clear plastic ponchos. It stopped raining about an hour ago, not sure if it's a lull or that was that. 

A wet Waikiki...

Sandbagging the university, which does lie on a low spot....

7 comments:

kmk said...

Man I say that you scored pretty big with your coins!!!

PleaseRecycle said...

OMG! I didn't know about the skipping the fee/Amazon thing.

Is that the same Star Market that we had in Boston, I wonder?

Anyway, I don't have your e mail address, but I wanted to tell you we got your fabulous hats and just in the nick of time! It got down to 22 degrees (F) the other night. Mollie loves hers and fancies it some sort of nightcap!

I am very impressed with your skill and yarn choice!

Enjoy the rest of the weekend...

Sarah (sarahdmertz at yahoo dot com)

PleaseRecycle said...

One more thing...

Thought you might like this link given your penchant for corals and crochet:

http://www.theiff.org/reef/index.html

RGW said...

Glad the hats arrived! Love the crochet coral reef, my mum sent me that link a while ago - don't think i'm quite skilled enough for crocheting corals yet, but I still love them!

I wonder about the Star Market - it reminded me a little of Shaws, felt really familiar....

PleaseRecycle said...

It must be the same- when we lived in Bostn, Star Market (Stah Mahket) bought Shaws (or the other way around).

Sarah

Anonymous said...

There's a Star Market on Claremont in Berkeley. I always thought it was an independent store. I'll have to check!

Nicola said...

yeah, if you use coinstar for gift cards, not cash, there is no fee. and right now, supposedly they will throw in $10 extra credit if your change adds up to enough.