add it up.

i’ve found them in hotel bar couch cushions, underneath potato chip racks, chipped them out of the ice with a ball-point pen, and rescued them from laundromat lint trays.  i’ve scanned sidewalks and check-out lanes from portland to jonesport (and all stops in between- and a few below), and dodged sideways glances from people who either thought i was a complete weirdo, or were jealous they didn’t get to it first.  all in all there were:

885 pennies

56 nickels

177 dimes

51 quarters

8 pieces of paper money (2 twenties, 1 five, & 5 ones)

1 golden dollar

*i also found 9 canadian pennies, 2 chuck e. cheese tokens, 1 boston subway token, and a few other assorted pieces of undefinable foreign currency.

for a grand total of $93.10. that’s roughly $.25 a day. not bad.

which means that cassie– with your guess of $89.50 (the closest without going over), you are the winner! woooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooot! good times.

p.s. extra props to the boyfriend who counted and cataloged every last penny of it on his day off.

best found money story- discuss.

this morning,  a reader (thanks cindy- you’re awesome!) left me a comment about how she found an amazing wad of dropped cash ($80+) at a garage sale. lucky! and then i rebounded with a story about how my friend found a $50 at arby’s (random!). and then in my head,  i started writing a book of short stories about people finding money under different circumstances (i tend to get carried away like this a lot).  in short, i want to hear your stories. big or small pennies or hundreds… it’s reader show and tell day!

here’s  a little story from me to get it started:

after a full year of change collecting, i am starting to notice some odd patterns. i’m not particularly superstitious, or even inclined to believe in fate, but sometimes i feel like the universe is rewarding or punishing me via the nickels and dimes i find on the street.

a moment of rare self awareness… a shiny quarter might appear in an unexpected place (on top of the yellow line dividing the right half of congress street from the left at the exact place where i’m crossing the street).

a cranky grumpy selfish day… a fistful of pennies covered in green bugs. or more likely,  no pennies at all.

about 3 years ago, i was getting ready to get married to someone that i knew i shouldn’t be marrying. and i was FREAKING OUT. i decided that the remedy for this was to get a tattoo (as it turns out, not the remedy- but that’s a whole other story). i wanted to assert my independence. give myself a permanent reminder of my autonomy- my past existence as single allie, and the life that i was feeling very much not ready to give up. i didn’t have the money, but it felt like necessity at the time, so out came the credit card. except that tattoo parlors aren’t like restaurants. there isn’t a tip section that pops out at the bottom of the receipt where you can just fill in the amount.  you’re supposed to tip in cash, and i didn’t have any. none. my plan was to overdraw my checking account and deal with the consequences later, but on the way to my appointment, there it was. a crumpled twenty just hanging out in the middle of a vacant lot that i happened to be cutting through.

i think at the time i thought the universe was telling me “getting a tattoo is a good idea!”, although maybe “if you’re afraid to lose your autonomy, maybe you’re not ready to let it go yet!” would have been a better translation. but again, that story needs a blog of its own.

NOW YOU!

see a penny.

i just wanted to thank everyone for the phenomenal response i’ve gotten from this month’s giveaway (especially you money saving maine-iac!). anyway, i thought it might be nice to do a follow up post that’s less about my story and more about what i learned during my year of change hunting. like a “how to” for aspiring hoarders.

top 5 places to find dropped cash:

1. parking meters. people in a hurry are always dropping change in the hunt for quarters. portland is especially great for this. plus, pennies blend into the bricks on the sidewalk.

2. in front of cash registers. basically, anywhere that people take money out, they’re likely to drop it.

3. couch cushions. i’ve had the best luck at bars & restaurants that have upholstered furniture and lots of traffic. once i found $3 in quarters in a wingback chair at a hotel bar. score!

4. in & around vending machines. the cardinal thing to remember here is that people are fundamentally lazy, and if it’s less than a quarter and requires bending at the waist to pick up, they’re leaving it behind. it’s your job to capitalize on this.

5. parking lots. when people are digging into their pockets to get their car keys, their loose bills and change are trying to escape. i found $4 in the CVS parking lot, and $1 at the st. john st. strip mall. it can happen to you.

so now you know where to get it, a few small things to keep in mind:

1. get yourself a sweet container that you can enjoy watching fill up. you don’t want your street change to mingle with your common pocket change (scandalous!). plus, it’s the best way to gauge your progress.

2. carry hand sanitizer. the hazard of picking up things off the ground is that they’re generally pretty unsanitary. i’m not particularly squeamish, but there was that time i picked up a handful of change that turned out to be covered in tiny green bugs. plus there’s always the surprise “sticky penny”. proceed with caution.

3. don’t be self conscious! nobody is paying attention. and even if they are, they’re probably just jealous that you saw that nickel first.

4. watch where you’re going! a lot of looking at the ground, means a lot of not looking in front of you. the world is filled with telephone poles and pedestrians. look out!

5. change walking is great exercise. when it’s not -10 wind chill, i spend most of my lunch breaks spiraling around the city streets on the change hunt.  the more time you spend out on the street, the more change you’re likely to pick up. plus, i hear that exercise is good for you or something.

life on the ground.

as of february 11th, i will have been collecting street change for 1 full year. not pocket change (i have a separate jar for that)- sidewalk change, floor change, gutter change, snowbank change… abandoned money, dropped accidentally or cast aside by people who didn’t think it was worth the effort to bend over and pick it up.

when i first started this little project, i wasn’t really sure how long it would entertain me. and at first i felt extremely awkward about people seeing me picking up dirty pennies on the street (i tried to be so slick about it at first). and then i found $20 in front of the porno store on congress street, and all my awkwardness faded away (now i’m completely shameless about it). what i learned this year is that A) nobody is really paying attention anyway, and B) there is REAL MONEY on the ground. i found not one but TWO twenties this year. 5 ones. and 1 five. and a golden dollar coin wedged in the couch cushions at bubble maineia. that’s $51 before i ever had to pick up my first dirty penny. all left behind by their previous owners and trod on by people in too much of a hurry to look down.

did i tell you about that time i found a check for $57,000 made out to a local microbrewery? sopping on the ground in a rainstorm, i walked it back to their office and was gratefully gifted with a free case of beer (really good beer). so now we’re up to $51 and a free case of assorted microbrews.

seriously yo, change hunting is awesome.

to celebrate my first year of collecting, i am dedicating my february giveaway to the practice. everyone now knows that i have at least $51 dollars in my found money jar (pictured above). leave a comment below guessing the total amount, and win a sweet prize. here are the rules:

1. one comment per person.

2. price is right rules- the winner will be the closest without going over.

3. the game begins right now, and ends on february 15th.  the winner will be notified via email on or around the 16th, and a celebratory post in their honor will let the losers know that they’re the losers (sorry guys!).

oh, and the prize is this totally hilarious bank that looks like a giant save key (below), pre- stuffed with a crispy $20 bill. that’s right, sweet bank & twenty bucks. it could be you!  let the guessing begin!

people are lazy.

so i was walking to the post office today past my very favorite bank of meters *location top secret* for street change finding, and BAM- a quarter. but not just a quarter. two dimes and 2 pennies dropped right nearby. that’s $.47! are people so lazy, or  fat, or busy, or rich that they won’t bend down to pick up a quarter? do we as a society really value change so very little? is the act of bending over really that labor intensive?  i’m torn between being really disgusted about how (especially in this economy), people can be so reckless with their money , and being super psyched about finding $.47. the change jar is growing, and i still have 3.5 months to go *feel the excitement*.