I want the U.S. to drop the damn things so we don’t have to bother with them. Just round to .1 instead of .01.
And, yeah, I put pennies into the penny-cup at convenience stores, so the next guy can pull one out if his purchase comes to 4.01. (As of late, 7-11 store clerks do this automatically, for purchases up to .03.)
But…yep! I bend over and pick 'em up when I see 'em in the gutter. It may only be a damn penny, but it’s money.
As an aside to this, I worked in a gas station during Gulf War I when the price was changing practically every day and the bitching was pretty much nonstop.
I pick them up! So they don’t screw up the vacuum cleaner.
Whenever I’m not traveling, I take my dogs for a morning run. Before we get to the park, we cut through the parking lot of a popular local bar. Patrons often leave fairly significant amounts of change in the parking lot, particularly after weekend nights. I keep a zipper pouch on me and always stop to pick up whatever change I find. After I’ve accumulated a fair amount, I take it to the bank and deposit it in a savings account. Last January when my grandson was born, I converted that savings account into a 529 college account for him and was able to start him off with a balance of just over $2,000!
So yes, I stop and pick up change.
Thanks to all of you who don’t pick up pennies, I now have hundreds of dollars worth of them. Of course I’ve been hoarding them for almost 60 years.
I walk every day, and I pick up all the money I see. I figure if nothing else, picking them up with my bad left hand gives it some needed therapy.
No way am I going to pick up a penny for its monetary value. Even without my employer having forked over about $70,000 for spinal surgeries, I don’t think it’s close to being worthwhile. Not even nickels or dimes.
I pick up things I drop because I don’t mean to litter. And if there’s a little kid nearby I often try to point it out to them.
If I were offered a job picking up pennies and my pay was keeping the pennies I picked up I’d turn down the job offer.
So, no.
I pick them up, and save the ones I get in change. One gallon of U.S. one cent coins is worth about $42.00. When I save that many, I take them to the Coinstar thing and get an Amazon credit.
No I don’t pick up pennies. I don’t pick up nickels or dimes either. I’d pick up a quarter though.
Heh. My buddy Norman Nardini (the uncrowned prince of Pittsburgh rock and roll, aka the guinea with the skinny) wrote a song called I Hate a Nickel (cause it ain’t a dime).
Here it is, with another Pittsburgh legend, Gary Belloma on vocals, Norman Nardini on guitar, Jimmy Adler on rhythm guitar, Harry Bottoms on bass, Whitey Clyde Cooper doing backing vocals.
Yes.
The dime is probably what I pick up least, but because it is so small that I rarely see it. I pick up all change that I can see because it is either A)trash that I get paid for recycling without having to drive to a collection place, or B)is actually worth it to pick up. Okay, I don’t pick up change that looks sticky, but that’s the only exception.
If I see coins on the ground (and they aren’t nasty-looking), I’ll pick them up, including pennies. I don’t actively look for coins on the ground, though.
I once found a five-dollar bill in the gutter…but someone had fouled it pretty badly. Used it as toilet paper. I thought, even so, about taking it to a bank and asking for a fresh replacement, but decided against it.
Yes. Heck I’ll even stop my bicycle and circle back to pick up a penny. I find a few dollars worth each year. My best was finding $40.01 on the side of the road.
We no longer have copper coins in Australia but I definitely bend to pick up the lowest denomination ‘silver’ coin (i.e. five cents).
I always pick them up. Always have. All coins. But something about pennies. I have two completely adorable “Pennies from Heaven” stories, and I’m thoroughly non-spiritual. Except for the pennies from heaven stuff. But this thread isn’t about that, so I’ll spare you.
Nope. At different cleaning jobs over my life I’ve sucked them up in a vacuum or sprayed them away with a pressure washer, but I don’t bother with them. If I was going to pick them up based on the hourly wage mentioned above I’d take that hour and find something that pays better, even just taking that hour and using it to look for ways to save money on something that I currently pay for.
The relevant question is not your total earnings, it’s your earnings relative to time expenditure. I estimate my own penny-picking pay at $12-$18/hour, tax-free, two to three seconds per. Given that I am otherwise either not earning anything in those seconds, or earning my regular pay already, that sounds pretty good. It’s not a job, it’s a raise.
Also, do you want to be the kind of person who thinks bending over swiftly to pick up a small object is an exertion, a bother?