For quite a while, I've wondered about the big machine in the entrance of my local Sainsburys.  It looks pretty impressive, and is called Coinstar with a big slogan on it "Turn your coins into cash".  This is the thing that puzzles me - my coins are cash; I regularly use them to buy things, and no one complains.  I also regularly get coins given to me as 'change', and I don't have an issue with it.  Should I be worried?

Coinstar want me to take the £10 (or whatever) of spare change that sits on my sidetable and put it in their machine.  They'll count it for me, confirm that "yes, it's £10" and then give me a voucher for £9.21 - the other 79p was their charge for counting it for me - which I then have to take to the customer service desk to cash for ... coins! 

So here are my options:

1. Count the change myself and then spend it
2. Put the change in a machine, which will then count it at a cost of 7.9%, then receive a voucher which I take to a desk to receive cash.

I know what I would do.