Life teaches lessons, I guess. For instance, I used to make fun of the favorite bands of my high school girlfriend all the time. I thought she was listening to such crap. Of course, now that I'm older and have started to forget the words to some Nine Inch Nails songs, I'm learning that X-Ray Spex, the Breeders. . . even Slant 6 are bands well worth listening to. Sorry about that. My bad.

I mention it because it leads nicely to another apology I have to make, and to Coinstar. You see, I used to be a serious detractor of the entire Coinstar concept (converting loose change into dollar bills, while taking a percent). I would rant at length about how it was the lazy man's choice. But here I sit, noticeably more weathly and significantly lighter, due to the intervention of a Coinstar machine. This begs the question: Ken - what happened in your life that made such a change in your opinion to his process?

Well, I'll tell you.

I've been thinking about it a lot recently, actually. As I see it, the only things that do not have a price are those things that are priceless. This puts arguments for Coinstar into two different main categories: Those in which my time is considered priceless (and therefore any amount of money is worth spending to keep me from spending even the smallest amount of time doing something I don't enjoy), and those in which there can be put a precise value on time. I personally do not subscribe to the former, but can accept is as a reasonable belief. In the case where time is priceless, it is clear to see why I would use a Coinstar machine - I want the money, and anything spent in order to decrease the time to get that money is without question worth spending.

As I say, I believe this is crap. For me, the question is one of strict numbers: Will the time I spend preparing and delivering the coins to the bank be worth more or less than the amount that the Coinstar machine will take from me for the service of the alchemical transformation of worthless metal to useful money (and let's here be honest: The coins are worthless without that magical act. This can be proven:

A: I have been in need of money at various points through the year.
B: If I had access to money in times of need, I would have used it.
C: I had access to the coins.
D: I did not use the coins.

Therefore, the coins are clearly not money).

At this point, I just have to work the numbers. But how much is my time worth? Well, that's a tough question, and I recently had a talk with one of my computer consulting clients about that very question. Luckily for that conversation, we had a nice baseline since she was in fact paying me for my time, an hourly wage (she was actually telling me that I was charging too little, so we can be relatively sure that I'm not overcalculating the value of my time).

I won't go into specific numbers here, but the basic equation is:

(Hourly Wage) x (Time Spent Rolling + Time Spent At Bank) < (Face Value of Coins) x (8.9%)

If that inequality holds true, than it is not worth going to the Coinstar machine. If it is true, than you should sit and start counting out quarters. In my case, the pro-rated hourly worth of my time more than exceeded the rake the machine took to eat my pennies. It was a highly worthwhile service, and one for which I was happy to pay (they got about $20 out of the deal, if you want to work that math).

Thanks Coinstar - my bad.