The $62 million penny-pinching secret

Spare change.

It flusters you at the checkout line, it jangles in your pockets, and it weighs down your wallet—but not in the good way.

Suffice to say, spare coins are a nuisance.

So it may come as no surprise that the average person tosses their change aside without a second thought.

We even laugh at people that save cents, calling them cheap.

But turns out, penny-pinching can pay off in a big way.

Have you ever thought about how much spare change simply gets thrown away?

How many times have you stepped on a dime on the street, or seen the flash of a penny in the gutter?

Well, according to a study from last year, those discarded coins amount to a whopping $62 million in loose change that Americans throw away EVERY YEAR!

Can you believe that? If you could have 1% of that, you’d be making a cozy $62,000 a year.

So how do you get your hands on your share?

Well, you don’t have to start picking up pennies of the street, if that makes you feel any better.

The first step to saving change is to simply watch your coins. When you get change back, save it! Keep a coin purse in your car, and a 5-gallon jug in your house for depositing loose change.

Say goodbye to pennies in the couch cushions!

A lot of people do this already, and then just let their coins sit in a corner gathering dust.

Have you ever wondered how much that mass of coins is worth?

I’ll give you a hint. A pound of pennies is worth about $1, a pound of nickels is worth about $4.50, and a pound of dimes and a pound of quarters are each worth around $20.

And a 5-gallon jar can hold about 200 pounds of coins.

Let’s say 1 gallon of the jar is filled with quarters, 2 gallons are filled with dimes, 1 gallon is nickels, and the last gallon is pennies.

Taken all together, that jar of throw-away change is worth $2,620!

Just think about that!

Now, keeping track of your coins like this might not cover retirement on its own, but if you fill that jar every 5 years or so, you can save $10,480 in 20 years, just from the coins you would have otherwise thrown away to join the rest of the $62 million wasted each year.

But, if those savings aren’t enough for you, there is even more potential to gain from your change jar. All it takes is a moment of your time to check your coins before you add them to the pile.

Why?

Because depending on the year of the coin, it could be worth a lot more than a few cents!

Now, you don’t have to turn into a full-fledged coin collector, but when you take in your change to be exchanged at the bank, make sure you aren’t taking 25 cents for a coin that’s worth $20!

For example even common coins like the Lincoln penny can be worth a lot more than you’d expect! Pennies printed between 1909 and 1958 are worth more than 1 cent, and a roll of 50 of them (that’s $0.50) is worth $1.50 or more!

That might not sound like a lot, but it’s 3 times the original worth of the coins! And pennies are pretty common, so if you sort your pennies before you take them in, you can make an extra few hundred dollars.

Likewise, dimes printed between 1946 and 1950 are worth $1.35 each, and quarters printed between 1934 and 1938 are worth $3.38!

Now, not every coin will be worth more than its printed value, but there are MILLIONS of these high value coins in circulation, and the odds of you coming across more than a few are high.

Plus, very few people know to check their change, so the likelihood of someone else snagging a high-value coin is low.

This coin-collecting secret may not make you millions, but it can give you an unbelievable payout for absolutely no effort beyond dropping your change in a jar, and collecting on your savings every few years.

While the rest of the country loses change to couch cushions, you’ll be cashing in on the money they don’t even know their missing out on!

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