h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Turn the loose change out of your pocket/purse every night and put it in a piggy bank. It mounts very fast. I have $17 since Monday. Either wait until you've got enough to deposit at the bank or go and spend it in slot machines: I'm about to buy several diet cokes and quite a lot of postage stamps. (A side-effect of this is that your pocket or handbag doesn't wear out so quickly. This, too, will save you some money)

This is true. One method we have of saving in our home is to put our spare change in a paint bucket weekly. There are now CoinStar machines in many American supermarkets that will sort the change very quickly, and give you a receit to get bills at the cash register. This method does take a small portion of your money as a processing fee. If you are more patient, you can go to your local bank with the change and wait while the clerk painstakingly counts it all out. In any case, we call this our 'rainy day' fund. We like knowing our little cushion is there, and have used the funds occasionally to help pay for vacation expenses.

I kept putting mine in an old cider jar. After several months of religiously putting change into the jar the level seemed to rise very little - imagine my joy when I could wait no more, counted it all up and found I had £175 saved up