Cha-ching For Coinstar | Spare Change and Payday Loans

Coinstar, payday loans profit consumers

Payday loans help, but they aren’t the only way to grab emergency cash…

Tough economic times has all of us counting our pennies. You know you do it. Why should excess money sit around in mason jars instead of filling your wallet on a trip to the grocery store?

Speaking of grocery stores, I have some good financial news for you. Ever seen one of those Coinstar machines at the front of the store? Dump your coinage into the tray, the machine counts it and prints you a voucher with the total (minus a small service fee). You redeem the voucher at any register or the store’s customer service desk for more convenient paper money. It’s like emergency cash.

They’re in the money

Apparently, these machines have become increasingly popular with cash conscious consumers. As the Associated Press reports, Coinstar expects a first-quarter 2009 profit after a 2008 Q4 profit of $4.2 million. Shares in the company are expected to up anywhere from four to 10 cents per share on revenue of $260 to $270 million. Their Q4 profit translated to an extra 15 cents per share, based upon not only the success of its coin-counting machines, but Redbox DVD and money transfer products.

On the strength of the past two quarters’ revenue, Coinstar upped its 2009 projection to $1.3 billion. Analysts expect their annual revenue to be $1.09 billion. This blows away the previous year, when they lost $37.2 million. ... click here to read the rest of the article titled "Cha-ching For Coinstar | Spare Change and Payday Loans"