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You know those Coinstar Centers that you find in grocery stores? They can take your change and give you back dollars minus an 8.5% handling fee. I always thought it was rather useless; why not just stop by your bank and have them convert your coins there? It would have been a smaller handling fee, if there was even any. Convenience, I suppose.

However, today's newspaper had an article about Coinstar branching out with the option of getting a pre-paid gift card with NO subtracted handling fee. The vendors of the gift cards include Amazon, Starbucks, and Pier One. There are some Coinstar Centers with prepaid phone cards too. There is also the option of getting a Mastercard pre-paid card, but with a fee. Talk about options galore. What was intriguing about the article was the idea that this is going to reach people out there that want to buy things online, but do not have any credit cards, mainly teenagers. I would even venture to say, it may even reach people who didn't want to use Coinstar simply because of the exorbitant handling fee. Throw in the choice of an Amazon gift card for the full amount of your coins, and you have easily lured in a buyer. Not to mention the idea of a Starbucks card. Who would have thought that their milk jug would easily contain three or four lattes?