I had a friend who was a waitress back in the early 90's who basically did the same thing, but used a 5 gallon water jug to put all the loose change in at the end of her shift. At the end of one year, she had three jugs full of loose coins, which totaled around $5K. I decided that I was going to start paying everything with bills and put all my coins from change into a jug as kind of a force savings. After 6 months, I had around $1500 which I used to travel to see my son in the Philippines. Small change does add up, if you let it.