Usually, I carry around spare change in my pocket and never have more than a handful of coins. I try to use it all up whenever I can. I’m that guy who takes forever paying for mints with ¥1 coins. But at the beginning of this year, I decided to start dumping all my change in a jar when I get home every night. This has been going well and last I counted I had already accumulated ¥30,000. Wow! At this rate by the end of this year I should have ¥180,000. Enough to pay off a bit of my mortgage or buy a MacBook!!
Last night, I remember putting ¥10 into the jar. Then this morning, feeling very drowsy from anti-hay-fever pills I completely forgot to go to the ATM and got on the train. When I got off at my stop I realized that my subway card did not have enough on it. It was just ¥10 short of the fare. I reached into my pocket and found it empty. My wallet, also empty. Sure wish I had that ¥10 coin from last night. What a pickle I was in. The station was very crowded and I thought which would be more embarrassing, telling the train station guy I was short ¥10 or waiting for someone I knew to walk by and asking him/her for ¥10. I decided on the train station guy. I gave him my card and explained the situation saying I’ll just pop over to the bank and be right back with the ¥10. He gave me a look and said, “Don’t worry about it” and let me through. Very cool dude, that guy. In 3 weeks when PASMO begins I’ll be able to charge my Mobile Suica from my phone so I’ll never get caught in this awkward situation again. Yay!! Jump for Joy!!
What you experienced is one of my fears. When I was working, I always kept several hundred yen zipped up in my backpack in case I lost or forgot my wallet and needed money. It’s probably still there in a little pocket as I don’t remember removing it when I quit a little over a year ago.
You might want to fold up a 1000 yen bill and put it someplace in your wallet you never dig into just for safety’s sake. It can’t hurt. ;-)
I’ve tried that before but it never worked. I always knew it was there and used it when I needed to take a taxi or buy something.
I have a huge jar of 1 and 5 yen coins. I’ve been unloading them everyday from my pockets, because their useless (except maybe for a visit to jinja) - no machine will take them. So the question is: how can I change them to higher nominals? In Europe, at some banks, you can dump coins and get paper money back … Can you do that in Japan?
grammar nazi: “because they’re useless”
bart, that’s a good question. I was wondering the same thing. Next time I’m at the bank I’ll have to ask them. And thank’s for the correction.
You can take coins to the banks and they will usually deposit the amount into your account. They should be fine as long as you have an account with them, I’ve done it a few times now with no problems :-)
Actually I think some ATMs let you drop all your coins in and will do the sorting automatically, when doing a deposit.