If you have a large pile of change (I won’t say a large pile of cash as some people say… last time I checked coins are still cash!), and you’re adverse to being charged to deposit it in the bank… what can you do?

During the year I save up all the small coins from my spare change (usually anything smaller than 50p but any coin if I suddenly end up with a large amount in my wallet) in a money tin and open it at the end of the year. I did this the other night, and ended up with £81.01 (and 60 New Zealand cents). Not a bad haul for the year, although I was secretly hoping for over £100.

But then, once I’m left with this big pile of money… what do I do with it? Apparently banks or the Post Office don’t take big piles of coins anymore without charging for it… and the Coinstar coin sorting machines at the supermarket take 8% of your money as a fee. I don’t like paying a penny more than I have to so I had to use my imagination.

All my 50p coins went to buying a month’s worth of Lotto tickets in case my numbers come up while i’m in New Zealand in January.

All my 10p and 20p coins went into the London Underground Oyster ticket machines at Tower Hill and Monument. Luckily it was a quiet day and I didn’t hold anyone up standing there feeding 230-odd coins into the machine one at a time.

The thing with the Oyster ticket machines is that you’re only allowed to put in 17 or 18 coins at a time, any more than that and it spits them all back at you in such a way that you feel like you’ve just won the jackpot on a slot machine in Vegas. So I had to do it in 14 separate transactions. I’m surprised none of the staff came up to me and questioned me.

All my 5p coins went into the vending machines at work. The trick with these machines is that if I put in 20 coins to make £1, then press the coin reject button, it gives me back one pound coin rather than the 20 coins I originally put in.

All my 2p coins went into the Tesco self-checkout at Monument. Being a public holiday there was nobody in the queue and so I fed all 150 two-pence pieces into the self-checkout in one go (one at a time). I’m so glad it didn’t spit them all back out. I got some funny looks from the staff but nobody said anything.

I haven’t figured out what to do with 200 pennies. If I’m feeling brave I might go back to the Tesco self-checkout but I think I’ll probably go to the London Eye next week and give them to the street performers. I’m sure they’ll love me.

If the police ever check my travel record, it will look very dodgy… fourteen top-ups in a row and then I didn’t even travel anywhere: