Coke-star

We have a machine in my area that counts your change for you, prints a little recipe, and lets you get dollar bills for your coins, called Coinstar – however at a price of 7%. Typically, other vending machines are around, such as Coke or Pepsi, and then the ones with the numbers that you push to get the snack… But i’m getting carried away. I have a neat little trick that uses a flaw in the way money is counted in the vending machines to save a little at the Coinstar machine.

Vending machines are pretty stupid, and only keep track of how much money you put in, not what kind of money you put in. So putting in 1 dollar of quarters is the same as putting in 1 dollar in dimes, in the machines eye. Also, for some reason, The vending machines are nice enough to return the largest coin value back to you, typically quarters.

So, to get less change, I typically head over to the vending machine and swap up for quarters. Most of the time, the cashiers are nice enough to give me paper money for the quarters.

Tags: coinstar, vending machine hack, coke-star