The average British household has £65 pounds worth of leftover currency in their drawers. In most cases that money is not being used at all. A whopping £1.8 Billion pounds is gathering dust. Time to inject this dormant money back into the UK economy.

The travel drawer

Do you have a ‘travel drawer’? It’s that drawer with yellowed travel documents, holiday pictures, postcards, Thomas Cook or Thomson brochures and … cash. The unspent foreign coins and banknotes from all those years of traveling.

Based on a sample of 3,000 transactions through the Leftover Currency website, we identified the average value of leftover travel money in British drawers: £65 pounds. On average, each British household has £65 pounds worth of unused foreign coins and banknotes tucked away. The 27.1 million UK households together have £1.8 billion pounds worth of leftover foreign coins and notes!

Top-10 currencies gathering dust

According to our research, these are the top-10 currencies most likely to be gathering dust in your drawers:

1. Euros
2. American dollars
3. Swiss francs
4. German deutschmarks
5. Spanish pesetas
6. French francs
7. Italian lire
8. Irish pounds
9. Canadian dollars
10. Australian dollars

£1.8 Billion in dormant money

Many of us don’t realise what the old currency in our drawers is worth. At Leftover Currency, we see many examples of customers who think their old currency is more or less worthless, but then it turns out it’s worth over £100 pounds. If everyone would know the value of their leftover currency, there wouldn’t be £1.8 billion of dormant foreign coins and old banknotes lying around, gathering dust.

We offer anyone with leftover travel money a simple and secure way to exchange it, at great exchange rates. Discover how much your stray coins and notes are worth. Simply add any banknote or coin to the online wallet and see how much money you will receive.  It’s a simple 3-step process, get started.