Picking up loose change makes sense
Money might not grow on trees, but it's apparently all over the streets. Sally Herships reports on a New York family that's building a nest egg with small change they find just lying around.
Hand holding coins (iStockphoto)
Links
- Follow the Humphrey family's hunt for change on their blog ChangePot
Follow the Humphrey family's hunt for change on their blog ChangePot. - Scott Caulfield blogs about his small change experiences on ChangeRace.
Scott Caulfield blogs about his small change experiences on ChangeRace. - Read about Sally's penny-picking adventures.
Read about Sally's penny-picking adventures.
TEXT OF STORY
Kai Ryssdal: "Pinching your pennies" is a common enough phrase in tough economic times. Lots of people are probably doing that -- metaphorically, anyway. But what about actually pinching those pennies as you find them lying on the ground? From the mean streets of New York City, Sally Herships reports.
Sally Herships: How much loose change do you think you've passed on the street? A few cents? A penny here, a penny there? And who stops for a penny, anyway? The Humphrey family does. Barbara and Scott Humphrey live with their two daughters on Staten Island. They've been collecting loose change from the street for a few years now.
Barbara Humphrey: This is it. This is our fiscal year 2008 change pot jar.
And even they're surprised by how much they've found.
Herships: What is your grand total so far?
Brianna Humphrey: I know!
Daughter No. 1, Brianna.
Brianna: It's a $1,013 and something cents. I can't remember the change.
Just to be clear this is money they've found -- on the ground. It's sort of a hobby. They take a lot of long walks.
Barbara: We're all looking around. You know, we have our glasses; we have our Purell bottles; we have our little change purses.
The family has a blog called ChangePot, where Barbara keeps a running tally of their findings.
Barbara: 'Cause I figured it would be a nice way at the end of the day, kind of like a Doogie Howser thing. You know, at the end of the day how he'd write down things. We basically keep track of it that way.
It all started about three years ago, when Barbara was at college and saw some money on the ground.
Barbara: In my school people -- they'd complain about not having money. But meanwhile, there's seven cents on the floor, nobody would pick it up.
So she did. But there were some odd looks. Even from Scott.
Scott Humphrey: I thought she needed help. 'Cause, I mean, why are you picking up change? I mean I make a decent salary. What is this? And three years later, it's added up kind of nice.
And now the whole family contributes.
Karen Humphrey: Even if you find a broken penny in the street.
Even 6-year-old Karen knows to look for beaten up coins. Banks will give you clean new shiny ones in exchange. But not all change seekers are in the Humphrey's league.
Scott Caulfield: Currently, as of right now, I've found $268.11. But I did find a dime and two pennies on the way over here.
Scott Caulfield lives in St. Louis. He also chronicles his finds on a blog called ChangeRace. And he seems to share a certain outlook on life with the Humphreys.
Caulfield: I'm the kind of guy I'd much rather drive around for five or 10 minutes and find a free spot or a metered spot, than pay seven or eight bucks. It's kind of just a different way of thinking. I don't look at it as cheap. I just look at it as smart.
He's a totally dedicated change hunter. Even on the most important day of his life.
Caulfield: I found one penny on the dance floor during my wedding.
Scott sees the value in small change.
Caulfield: It's interesting how people just walk away. You know, they'll drop a quarter, they'll drop a nickel, they'll drop a dime and they'll just, they'll walk away.
Barbara: I mean, People see change as just that, nothing worthwhile or significant . My daughter on the other hand, when she sees a penny, she says 99 more make a dollar. And I'm very proud of her for that. Very proud.
Neither the Humphreys nor Scott Caulfield have specific plans for their savings. But, I know what I'm going to do. Follow some advice I got from Scott: Keep my head down and look for silver.
I'm Sally Herships for Marketplace.
Kai Ryssdal: We've got links to the blog that Sally mentioned, as well as her own try at looking for spare change on our Web site. It's marketplace.org.
Comments
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From Louisville, KY, 10/22/2008
My husband has been picking up coins for years! People would laugh and call him cheap, but I think of all the money it has earned him! $200 found is still a profit of $200! He even has me scanning parking lots now for coins.
From Baltimore, MD, 08/22/2008
I've been picking up coins for 25 years, saving them in a stash jar, and at year's end, sending the total, plus my own matching dollars, to a soup kitchen or homeless shelter. The coins have to be in public spaces; they are street money, and really belong to those who live there. I do try to look up occasionally to appreciate the world around me, but I'm addicted to this challenge.
From NC, 08/20/2008
Money fallen on the ground, no matter how little, is not mine as I did not earn it. It belongs to someone else that has misplaced it, I would never keep it. If I do pick it up, it goes to charity. Where's our moral compass?
From bethlehem, PA, 08/20/2008
I started collecting loose change a few years ago. First it was change in the laundry, old purses, anywhere in the house. If I found a penny in the back of a drawer I was happy. Soon, I spotted it on the street as I walked in my surburban neighborhood. I always keep my eye out for coins now. I have a huge casserole filled with "found" coins. One time, as I got out of my car the wind was blowing dollar bills down the street as an SUV drove away. My lucky day. They could have bought a gallon of gas.
From MN, 08/18/2008
I think it's an interesting kind of game, looking for change on the ground, because each day brings a clean slate. The same stretch of road may yield nothing one day, and something another. You could say there's a sort of renewable resource for the change we find...the traffic of other people.
From MA, 08/18/2008
This story is great. I myself do this and find it is kind of a relief to know I'm not the only person out there doing it. I have always been raised to see the value in a dollar, even if that dollar has lost its value. I also began a donation for the JDRF with cans I seen people needlessly throwing away at work. In under 3 months we have over $100. If only more people could realise what the money they throw out could go to.......
From Twentynine Palms, CA, 08/17/2008
I need to find the market value of money.
From Martinsville, IN, 08/17/2008
I also pick up coins, including pennies. As an added bonus, US pennies minted before 1982 are copper, not zinc like later ones. Currently, copper pennies are valued at about 2.2 cents each in melt value (per coinflation.com, where I found this article). It is illegal to melt US coins, but knowing they are worth more is part of the fun of finding them.
From polo, SC, 08/16/2008
cho tui nap the nha cac ban than.co the cho tui choi lau ko .
From Austin, TX, 08/14/2008
I do pick up change though I don't keep track of it. One thing I used to pick up in college was pens - I rarely had to purchase a pen in college. I really don't remember ever buying one after my freshman year.
From Maitland, FL, 08/14/2008
I've been picking up stray coins for nearly 3 years now - inspired by a fellow bicyclist and friend. Now I'm addicted. It is hard to explain the joy I get from finding a coin or two on the street and adding it to my special collection. For me, it's not a frugality issue as much as it is the fun of finding "treasure" and the competition of finding more than the year before.
From Menlo Park, CA, 08/14/2008
I dream of a day when the penny becomes the ubiquitous symbol for charity in this country.
Imagine -- The U.S. Treasury mints between 7 billion and 13 billion pennies each year, and each year, half that many fall out of circulation. Nobody knows for sure how many, but the best estimates put the number at somewhere between 250 and 750 billion pennies that are sitting in the drawers, the bottoms of purses, in jars, and in "give one/take one" trays around the country -- generally out of circulation.
That's between $2.5 billion and $7.5 billion!
That's why we started Got Cents? in 2005.
Just a few months after the last Presidential Election, we started collecting pennies as a way of showing people how many Africans had lost their lives to AIDS. The goal was somewhere between 19 million and 25.4 million pennies. Our thought -- put them on display and then donate the money to groups that are working to fight AIDS on the ground in Africa.
Nearly four years later, both the Democratic and Republican Conventions, in conjunction with ONE and World Vision will be hosting our penny display at the conventions. Today, we have amassed 6.1 million pennies. That's approximately one penny for each African life lost to AIDS since we begain collecting.
And the odd thing -- that number is so great, that we have to truck the pennies from Denver to Minneapolis/St. Paul, because MSP doesn't have enough pennies.
As we like to say (and it is profoundly demonstrated by the thrifty families you interviewed):
Start where you are,
Use what you have,
Do what you can,
It will be enough!
-- todd
(650) 269-4477
From Martinsville, IN, 08/14/2008
My family says a penny isn't worth "a bendover," but I remind them I just need 99 more to make a dollar (just like in your story). Now that I know there is such a thing as coin-spotting, I think I'll begin training.
From New York, NY, 08/14/2008
As an inveterate coin picker upper, I thoroughly enjoyed this piece, as well as the comments of the other "pickers." I'm torn, however, about whether to applaud you for publishing this material. I don't like to encourage my competition in any way.
From Madison, WI, 08/14/2008
My father died when I was 14 and left a will with a specific amount to be given for my wedding. Just out of college in 1951, we decided to give up the wedding and spent it all on a honeymoon to Bermuda. When we returned to New York we had no money for groceries but just enough to go to a movie and it was two weeks until payday. On leaving the movie we found a $20 bill by the curb -- and it got us through!
From Stuart, FL, 08/14/2008
There's a river that passes near the intersection of Belvedere and Mercer Ave in West Palm Beach that has a whole lot of pennies in it. That's where I throw the worthless things. Go get 'em!
08/14/2008
There is an unconfirmed legend about one of the richest man in Hong Kong. As he was getting out of his car, he dropped a coin and proceeded to search all around the car for the lost coin. His company's security offered to help and in a few minutes, located the lost coin and returned it to him. He then tipped the guard with a large bill. This was used as an illustration of his key to wealth and success: Being frugal about every penny, and yet totally unstinging in rewarding his subordinates.
From Minneapolis, MN, 08/13/2008
Check the Washington Post's archive for "TAILS OVER HEADS": SURE, I KEEP TRACK OF EVERY COIN I FIND ON THE STREET. DOESN'T EVERYONE?
William Casey
October 13, 1996; Page C1
Picking up coins found on the street and in public places doesn't need to focus on its money value. The charm for many of us lies in collecting data about these discoveries over time, examining questions such as where, when, how many at one time and so forth.
The 17,351 coins and bills found during my 15-year study (1/1/85 - 12/31/1999) revealed a wide array of fascinating patterns. The fact that one or more coins was found in 47 of the 50 U.S. states during that time, that Fridays were the best day to spot them, that less than 49% of those found every year had the observe (heads) side up, that two 50-cent pieces found, that mint locations of the coins varied predictably depending on where they were found, that .45% of all coins found dated from prior to 1960 -- all of these aspects and many more were of greater interest to me than the $834.70 in total value they represented.
Some of the data collected during the study were used, with my permission, as the basis for an analysis problem in a statistics text.
All the actual coins found during the study period are still here, stored in jars in Minnesota. I do not know quite what to do with them, I admit.
William Casey
From Poestenkill, NY, 08/13/2008
Do the math: if it takes me two seconds to pick up a penny, that's thirty cents a minute, and $18 an hour. Do you make $18 an hour? Nickels are worth $90 an hour. Do you make $90 an hour? Is it worth your time to pick up change? Judge for yourself.
08/13/2008
In the 9 months prior to the birth of my son, my brother who was then a janitor at a High School in Concord, CA. collected about $500 in change and gave it as a birth gift to our son. It is the basis of his first bank account.Not a bad way to start out your life. I always pick up 'Lucky Pennies'. coins.
From San Antonio, TX, 08/13/2008
I always pick up change when ever I see it on the ground. I've found as little as a few pennies to a crumpled $100 bill I found at a fair. I put all this money in a plastic bag and take it to the bank to put in my savings account. I'm the same way about aluminum cans with recyling centers paying up to 84 cents a pound. Yipeee! Frugality Reigns!
From Duluth, MN, 08/13/2008
I've been picking up coins for the last 20 years - and sometimes manage to find a few bills too. But I really hit the 'Mother-load' in Moscow, Russia. We had just landed after an umpteen hour set of flights and wanted to stay awake to avoid jet lag. We took a leisurely walk from our hotel over to the nearest subway/rail station. Along the way, and especially in front of the railway station, I was constantly finding coins. I could not believe the Russians were just letting all these coins sit on the ground. By the time we got back to the hotel, I had 2 handfuls of coins. Then I sat down to add them up. Most were various denominations of kopeks - the Russian equivalent of a penny. There are 100 to a ruble and, at that time, the ruble was 31 to the US$. If a ruble is 3 cents, you can see what a kopek was worth...and my 2 handfuls of coins added up to $1.12. So much for my new found wealth. I did keep some as souvenirs for our kids.
08/13/2008
My husband and I have been picking up change for at least seven years. We average about $300 per year. When we find at least one of each coin on the same day, we say we've hit a "grand slam."
From Little Rock, AR, 08/13/2008
I am someone who picks up stray change, but the other day, I had to sadly bypass a real motherlode of pennies and small change- it was lying in the middle of an asphalt oil-stain on a 108-degree day. Since I was headed inside for lunch, I had to pass up this little find, but normally, I'd pick stuff like that up in a heartbeat.
The only thing I don't like about my new car is that it doesn't have an ashtray drawer for me to dump stray change into- a cupholder now serves, and when it starts to rattle when I go over bumps, it's time to empty it out.
After hearing this story, I promptly went outside and picked up two pennies I'd seen lying in my street.
From Jacksonville, FL, 08/13/2008
Thank you for this report. I always feel that I have to pick up change when I see it. I sometimes feel cheap doing so but I am happy to see that others also share the urge. I was also surprised that so many people don't care.
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