Tracking the change I pick up off the ground!
That’s right, I pick up the change I come across on the ground. Almost always — it sort of depends who’s looking. I think of it as a hobby; this makes it seem a little more respectable to me. It’s a rare hobby which requires no investment at all — it actually turns a profit.
In 2008 I started keeping track of how much I picked up. I had always picked up change, dropping it into my kids’ piggy banks after they were old enough to have them, but I hadn’t totaled it.
In 2008, I picked up a total of $9.49.
In 2009, I picked up $19.51 — almost double the year before. I think this goes to show that when you track something, you tend to pay more attention to it. Prior to 2008, when I walked home from the subway station, I would sometimes choose the route that took me past a row of parking meters; after I started tracking the change I picked up, I always went that way. I came across a lot of change by them. Is this sad, and pathetic? Well, I had to walk home one way or another, so I might as well take the route that had money scattered around.
In 2010, I picked up $22.42.
(In these two years I picked up 190 pennies and 200 pennies [on the nose!] That’s a lot of pennies to reach down for . . . well, as I said — it’s a hobby of mine.)
Then I stopped keeping track. And soon after, I noticed I was seeing less dropped change. I think people just carry much less cash, now. Plus, many parking meters were removed, replaced by pay stations that accept credit cards.
Another change was that we moved, and while our old house was near a drive-through window of a drug store which often had fallen coins beneath it, the new house was not. So that source was gone, also.
But overall I just think far fewer people carry coins at all. The golden age of fallen change has ended.
Last year I kept track of the total again, for the first time since 2010. Drum roll:
$3.22. That’s it. And I found a quarter on the street on the Dec. 30th; without that I wouldn’t have even cleared three bucks.
Nothing so far in the two days of 2020.
In 2008 I started keeping track of how much I picked up. I had always picked up change, dropping it into my kids’ piggy banks after they were old enough to have them, but I hadn’t totaled it.
In 2008, I picked up a total of $9.49.
In 2009, I picked up $19.51 — almost double the year before. I think this goes to show that when you track something, you tend to pay more attention to it. Prior to 2008, when I walked home from the subway station, I would sometimes choose the route that took me past a row of parking meters; after I started tracking the change I picked up, I always went that way. I came across a lot of change by them. Is this sad, and pathetic? Well, I had to walk home one way or another, so I might as well take the route that had money scattered around.
In 2010, I picked up $22.42.
(In these two years I picked up 190 pennies and 200 pennies [on the nose!] That’s a lot of pennies to reach down for . . . well, as I said — it’s a hobby of mine.)
Then I stopped keeping track. And soon after, I noticed I was seeing less dropped change. I think people just carry much less cash, now. Plus, many parking meters were removed, replaced by pay stations that accept credit cards.
Another change was that we moved, and while our old house was near a drive-through window of a drug store which often had fallen coins beneath it, the new house was not. So that source was gone, also.
But overall I just think far fewer people carry coins at all. The golden age of fallen change has ended.
Last year I kept track of the total again, for the first time since 2010. Drum roll:
$3.22. That’s it. And I found a quarter on the street on the Dec. 30th; without that I wouldn’t have even cleared three bucks.
Nothing so far in the two days of 2020.
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