I’m not the kind of person who throws all my change in a jar and then looks to cash it in every five years, but if you are, you’ve undoubtedly come across one of the 17,000 Coinstar automated coin counting machines where you can simply dump your coins in and get cash, at a cost – Coinstar takes a 9.8% commission of the total.

But they have been offering some deals where you can get a gift card instead of cash and certain retailers have signed up to sponsor the waiving of the Coinstar commission if you get a gift card instead of cash.

They also periodically offer discounted gift cards.  For instance, Apple has done several promotions where you can buy a $50 iTunes gift card for $40.

Not a bad way to save a bit of money.