Recently I waited a long time at the supermarket, staring fixedly at the front of the store as the line inched along. That’s because an optometrist once told me to focus on things 20 or 30 feet away from time to time, as an antidote to all the screen work I do.
Thus I ignored the Kindle app* on my phone and focused on the Coinstar machine. In part that was because a big green rectangle is an easy thing on which to focus. It was also in pleasurable anticipation of stopping by that machine after I checked out.
As regular readers know, I glean lost coins in stores, on sidewalks, from vending machine change-return slots and, yes, from Coinstar machines.
These machines will spit out dented or otherwise compromised specie, as well as foreign coins. I’ve also found they’ll spit out U.S. coins if they’re too light to be recognized.
Which is what had happened: The rejected-coins cup was full of what looked like dimes. No other coins; just 34 dimes, all issued between 1946 and 1964. I e-mailed my PF blogging pal J. Money**, who’s also a numismatist with a site called Coin Thrill. Turns out these dimes are so common that they’re not worth much to collectors unless they’re uncirculated.
These were circulated. Very circulated. However, their condition doesn’t matter when it comes to melt value.
Some preppers collect silver coins in bulk to be ready for the zombie apocalypse, or the next election. According to J, each of these Roosevelts would currently be worth about $2 after being melted: “A nice cache to come into.”
He’s not wrong. Finding $68 worth of change in a Coinstar machine is a pretty good day.
Another Coinstar moment
DF and I wondered about the origin of these dimes. Did someone inherit a grandparent’s jar of coins, both old and modern? Was such a jar sold in an estate sale?
“Or maybe they were stolen,” DF suggested. A thief probably wouldn’t bother taking a big jar of coins to a shop on the off-chance that some were worth more than face value. They would want to liquidate it quickly – and the easiest way to do that is through Coinstar.
No idea why the sound of all those dimes dropping into the change cup wouldn’t have gotten the thief’s attention. (Or the attention of the inheritor, or the person who lucked out at the estate sale.) Maybe they were wearing headphones, or talking on the phone while waiting.
About a week after the Roosevelt bonanza, I pulled another big handful of coins from a different Coinstar machine. This haul included a few Euros and what I think are centavos along with the U.S. money. Also a nice clutch of Canadian change, including a toonie, a loonie, a few quarters, a couple of dimes and some pennies.
The non-Canadian money went into my sandwich bag of interesting-looking coins. Eventually I will give this away on the Buy Nothing Facebook page, because there’s probably a kid (or an adult) in my neighborhood who’s interested in the coins of other lands.
The Canadian money went into our washing-machine fund*** jar, joining other Canadian change that has come our way. Living next-door to the land of maples means their money regularly ends up here. In the past I’ve saved it for when DF traveled to Canada with his Eskimo dance troupe.
He’s decided to retire from dancing, but I still save the money. A couple years back I gave a few bucks’ worth to a woman whose child was going to Canada for some kind of youth sports competition. Now I figure I’ll hold on to the Canadian cash until it reaches a respectable amount and put it out on Buy Nothing.
Every dime matters
Throughout the year I set aside all serendipitous specie. In January I count it, round it up and donate it to the Food Bank of Alaska.
If you’re in a position to do so, consider putting your own found money toward a favorite charity. Or toward a favorite person, such as your struggling-artist offspring or a nibling who’s working their way through college.
Found money can also make a difference in your own budget, even if you’re not living close to the edge. Add it to your emergency fund, retirement fund or vacation fund. Or put it against the house note: Watching for dropped money let a reader named Cheryl put an extra $25 to $50 per year toward her rapid mortgage payoff.
And if you are having money issues? Then every penny really does count. Just ask the person who is a few cents short on that carton of milk for the kiddo, or the bag of dry beans that could feed the two of them for a couple of days.
There’s an old saying: “Watch your pennies and your dollars will watch themselves.” That’s only partly true, I’ve found; at times in the past I’ve focused so seriously on the pennies that I ignored the bigger picture. See “Strategic pizza” for a good example of this.
Overall, though, we need to pay closer attention to small money leaks because they can add up to major budget-busters. Back in my MSN Money days I interviewed a woman who was so frazzled (a couple of part-time jobs, several teens in extracurriculars) that she stopped noticing how often she used her debit card. Once she started tracking her spending, it turned out she’d been spending up to $150 a week on fast food.
So yes, watch your pennies. Watch for dimes, too.
Readers: What’s your best found-money story? Do you add it to a financial goal or donate it?
*Reading “Anna Karenina” right now. More recently I’ve read “The Mother,” “Dead Souls,” and “Crime and Punishment.” Those Russian authors sure are a merry bunch.
**He’s the one responsible for turning me into a bobblehead. Bless his heart.
***Every time we do a laundry we put a couple of bucks in the jar, toward an eventual replacement. Some of it has even been banked for that purchase, but some gets used for essentials: a hardware-store run, some potting soil, a couple of boxes of Girl Scout cookies. The washing-machine fund is one of the tips from “Challenge Yourself to Save,” a chapter from my first book. This chapter is available as a free Google doc to anyone who’s interested, because I believe in emergency funds at least as much as I believe in Girl Scout cookies.
Related reading:
I used found coins and saved coins to buy postage at Christmas.
Coins Are Sexy .com 🙂
They are indeed, buddy.
When I was a teenager in the mid 90’s, I worked as a cashier at a fast food restaurant. I used to keep a couple dollars of change in my pocket and would swap out any interesting coins that landed in my drawer. I got a lot of silver coins, as well as silver dollars, fifty cent pieces and two dollar bills. The restaurant didn’t care as long as my drawer added up to what it was supposed to. I still have almost all of them. I recently calculated the value and my collection is worth around $200. All from some pocket change in my teens. (Probably less than $20 over a couple of years)
Nice! My niece worked at a supermarket and she also collected some interesting old coins in that way.
I have 1 indian head penny that I kept for many years. Guess that is the only one worth a buck or so. HA HA! I have from Canado, Mexico and brazil in a dish. Always wondered if there was somewhere to trade them in. I have quite a few pennies that I picked up that were either run over by cars or corroded in dirt piles that worked their way to the top. The past two weeks I found .22 cents. Maybe people aren’t picking up again in my area. We had at least 6 months here where I didn’t find anything. Hey, anything helps!
I run with a group of friends but we separate pretty quickly based on speed. I pair up with our next door neighbor and my wife, who is faster, runs with the faster people. We find money on the streets we run on frequently. Usually just pennies but sometimes quarters, dimes and nickels. Twice I’ve found ten dollar bills! We all give what we find to my running partner, she donates it to a charity. All of us will interrupt our run for even a single penny. And maybe that has something to do with the fact that most of the runners are multimillionaires, except the younger ones, and they are well on their way.
I don’t have any great found money stories, but my brother once pulled off the road to, ahem, tend to nature in the trees and saw a twenty, then another twenty and finally ended up with a couple hundred dollars in twenties strewn about. Heaven only knows how they got in there.
Years ago, a young woman I used to work with was out with friends on a windy night. A leaf blew right into her face and she peeled it off — except that it was a $50 bill. More “leaves” flew by and all of them were running around trying to capture the cash. Their best guess was that a drug deal had gone wrong and all parties fled. She personally collected several hundred bucks — and this was in 1981, when that was a lot of money. Heck, I wouldn’t mind finding a few hundred bucks today….!
Hubby and I were staying at a nice resort and they had great walking trails. There was no one in sight, but we saw around $500.00 on the ground in 20’s, 50’s, and 10’s. I would normally turn something like that in, but we both knew the desk would just pocket it. So we did.
You did…what? Turn it in, or keep it?
And I wonder what the story was there?
About a year ago as I was leaving our favorite Mexican food spot I spotted paper money flying around the parking lot. I was able to scoop up most of it. My friend had been waiting in the car for me. He said a couple of women had left a couple of minutes before. He’d noticed that one was pulling something out of her purse as she walked to their car. We surmised that it must have blown out of her bag and she didn’t notice, it was pretty windy at the time. We went home with $38 dollars which more than covered our meal.
Noice!
I ALWAYS pick up coins on the ground, and check the coinstar as well!
About a month ago I pulled into my parking space in front of my condo, stepped out of car – looked down and a crumbled $10 bill was laying there! No on was around……so BINGO!
I still hold onto all found money – and now I do as you do and round up to donate to a local charity. I send pics of the end of year stash to a few friends who like to guess how much it is.
I’ve enjoyed both Donna’s post and all the comments. Thanks.
I faithfully check the Coinstars at both of the local supermarkets I regularly shop at. Nothing like Donna’s haul to report, but here’s my favorite story: I found a 1947 George VI British shilling in one of the Coinstars the very same day I learned that a proposal of mine for a breakout presentation at the Jane Austen Society of North America (JASNA) Annual General Meeting had been accepted. In British Royal Navy slang (JA had two brothers who rose to Admiral’s rank in the BRN), I’ve always referred to that day as “taking the King’s shilling.”
I love this.
No amazing “finds” but all found coins go in The Giving Jar. I’ll periodically add my own change to it and when there is a need, I have a little to share: meals for new parents, sick neighbors, Christmas bell ringers, etc. We recently used it to made a contribution to the funeral fund of a murdered high school graduate. Dimes make dollars so I never turn my nose up at them.
That’s where my found coins go, too, except that the donation is always the same: the Food Bank of Alaska.
And yes, dimes turn into dollars. Or dollars melt away into pennies.
My son (we call him Eagle Eyes) found a $20 bill at the store one day. Shortly thereafter he found a lizard at the pet-store that must have escaped his cage long ago….memorable day!
My best find was back in January when I found a twenty in front of a dumpster. I doubt that I’ll get that lucky again!
I remember when I visited New Orleans in 2019 that during our 5-day stay, I found $2 in coins on the streets. Most likely dropped by inebriated tourists. ;o)
Here’s a tip – pull into self-serve car washes whenever you can and search. Look around the vacuums and check the coin returns. I find money at least fifty percent of the time. As a bonus, I sometimes find useful/interesting things. Last week, I found 5 unopened bottles of water!
Score!
Back in my MSN Money days, I read about a guy who worked at a car wash. One of his jobs was to empty the vacuum cleaner bins (I don’t know what the real word for that is). He rigged up an old nylon stocking as a filter and, although he said it was messy, gleaned a lot of change that way. Some folks would rather vacuum up than pick up fallen change from their vehicle floors, or perhaps they were poking the vacuum wands under the seats and couldn’t see the lost coins. Either way, it was a nice sideline for him.
Where would you take these “Roosevelts to be melted down? I found 4 or 5 dimes this week, plus some pennies. I guess people are out shopping and dropping again.
About 20 years ago I was in the supermarket walking down an aisle when I noticed a crumpled up wad of money on the floor. It was $35, a twenty, a ten and a five. I felt kind of bad thinking a kid or maybe a person down on their luck had dropped it. I went to the service desk and left my name and phone number and said if someone lost some money to please have them call me. No one ever called so I kept it but I can’t remember how I used it.
I am a retired letter carrier and once found a twenty dollar bill in a leaf pile while walking a mail route. Another time I found a ten dollar bill in some rocks on my route. I also found numerous coins, once 8 quarters in a group. My husband, also a retired letter carrier, found a fifty dollar bill blowing around in the leaves and another time a gift card to a local restaurant with$16 left on it. I wish we had kept track of all the money we found and what we did with it.
Do you still pick up money, though? I bet you don’t have as many opportunities given that your walking routes are shorter in retirement….
Yes, we always pick up money. We both still walk and occasionally find coins but no paper money so far. Sad to say but combined we’ve only found .71 so far in 2021 but it’s money we didn’t have before. I also picked up deposit cans and bottles on our walks and put the money from their redemption in the cup but I got squeamish with Covid around and stopped at the start of the pandemic. Thank you for all your articles. I have learned so much and have been entertained so much too!
P.S. I found .36 on and around a Coin Star machine yesterday bringing my total of 2021 found money up over $1!
I find money sometimes, lately my most useful finds have been partially used bus cards I used to get to and from work sometimes. I found them on the walking path near where I live.
Money comes in various forms these days.