You know the feeling. The change slowly accumulates over days and months in your pocket, 1p?s, 2p?s and even the little 5p?s are making a bulge in your wallet. What to do with them? Annoy shopkeepers by paying with them over a period so long that the queues build up behind you? Save them in an old sweet jar until you take it to the bank, only to realise there?s about £1.27 actually saved?

You could do that, or you could use them at Asda in their superb new machine, Coinstar. Coinstar has one job, to convert any amount of loose coinage into vouchers, simply pour the change you have into the box, it will be counted and returned to you in the form of an Asda voucher.

The voucher isn?t for so much off when you spend set amounts, nor is it the silly buy one get one free on stuff you never use. It is hard cash, if you have enough just pay for all your shopping with it. There are no limits or minimum as to what you can use, and if the voucher is bigger than the bill Asda will actually give you cash change. I?m pretty sure the machine takes coins of any value and it claims to count at 600 coins per minute, which means there will be no queues for it.

The idea is a masterpiece, personally I always end up with loose change ranging from 10p pieces down, and I usually save them in a tin and pay them in at the bank, but it means counting them, bagging them and then queuing. The new Asda machine means I can simply walk in, pour my change in and then leave with a voucher to be used on my shop. I figure that in a month I can easily accumulate £10 in change, as I get a lot of it, so my shopping bill has a nice little reduction now.

The idea will I?m sure catch on elsewhere, but for now this is at Asda only as far as I can see, but that?s no bad thing as Asda seem to do lots of decent deals and offers, as well as being reasonably cheap.

They have a great clothes range (where you can also use the voucher) as well as good entertainment sec
tions. And the takeaway Chinese (Char Sui Pork especially) are excellent in taste and value.

Well done Asda, one of the smartest moves in years (and makes up for the removal of the Reward Card)