Late one recent evening I stopped at a nearly deserted supermarket. One tired-looking cashier leaned against her counter, and a customer service agent yawned mightily as he kept an eye on the self-checkout area.
No one was anywhere near the coin-counting machine. As is my wont, I glanced into its returned-coin bin as I passed by.
Did I hit the jackpot.
The most-read piece I ever wrote for the Smart Spending blog was an essay called “See a penny? Pick it up!” Before MSN Money switched blog platforms, the article had received more than 1.6 million hits.
The comments were also numerous, and about evenly split: People who also happily gleaned change and people who thought the idea was unbelievably disgusting. Pick up dirty, germy, dog-peed-upon coins? Eeeeewwww.
I’m fully aware that found money isn’t clean. But it’s not as though I carry it home in my mouth.
Besides: I hate to break it to those folks, but the bills and specie they get from banks and stores are probably just as revolting.