I pick them up. Back when I was a train commuter, I would find money every day. I kept a log for a whole year - the result was over £100 - enough to buy everything for the Christmas table.
I was waiting for you to post that 
I also pick them up, I also find money every day, anything from pennies to £2 coins, plus I’ve found £5 and £10 notes.
Most days its more than 1p that I get - yesterday it was two 2ps and at least three 1ps, today (so far) it’s been a 1p, one 2p and a 5p, and that was just the morning walk to the schoolbus.
I’ve been putting the coins I’ve scavenged since 1st Nov in a separate jar to save and try and count how much I collect. I may return and bore you all at some point 
Oh, and I’ve also got a bit OCD about it and will get nervous/stressed on a walk if I’ve not found at least 1p that day “for good luck”. Which isn’t ideal, I know.
I passed up a dime the other day.
Then immediately felt lazy.
mmm
Nope. Sweeping the living room this very morning brought up two pennies along with the dust bunnies and other debris. I didn’t bother to pick them out of the dustpan before throwing the contents in the garbage.
I picked up one in the supermarket parking lot the other day and was thinking about this very thing. When I get change, which is rare since I always use a credit card, I leave pennies in the “leave one, take one” tray if there is any. I once saved them and passed out bags of them to panhandlers.
I pick pennies up. They may be the smallest change, but it’s still money.
I spend the pennies I find, by using them for bus fare. Yes, you heard me right–Fort Worth bus fare machines actually take pennies. 
I always do.
The rhyme I learned was also “See a penny, pick it up/All day long you’ll have good luck” but I learned The Dark Verse: “See a penny, let it lay?/ You’ll have bad luck all the day!” (I have no idea where I got that, but that’s the rhyme I know.)
I basically just pick them up to avoid bad luck, at this point. It’s worked pretty well.
I don’t subscribe to the ‘head up is lucky’ thing.
The worst fake money thing I’ve gotten caught by was seeing what looked like a $20 bill folded up on the ground at it being a religious pamphlet.
I have a couple of change jars around the house. I fill them up and depending, I either get the cash or donate it at one of the coinstar things. (My family did the change/roll change thing and it’s stuck–but I’m not spending time rolling coins anymore. I did it for years at Wallyworld and nope, no, and never again.)
I got a bit like that too. But on my commute, I had a few spots I could more or less rely on. The ticket hall had a floor that was good at hiding 20p coins and there was a vending machine with a change chute that had a tendency to launch coins straight out. They would roll until they hit the wall opposite, and pile up there.
I don’t pick up pennies, except to keep them out of the vacuum. At 47, I figure there’s only so many bend-overs left in my back. It’s not worth a penny to use one of them. I might need that bend-over later for something important, and if I’ve spent it picking up a penny, it won’t be there. I will pick up nickels and over, though- that’s worth a bend-over.
I reason it exactly the opposite: the more you do it, the longer you retain flexibility. Bending over (carefully!) is an investment, not an expenditure!
I get to harvest the proceeds of the mall fountains each year, but I only get the pennies…which still add up to about a $500 donation to the Make-a-Wish foundation. I pick up most coins I see, though I have tried to ignore one in my driveway for a few weeks…finally caved. When I get too many coins in the bottom of my purse, I sell them to the register at work…many times it has saved me a trip to the bank for change. And today? I’m searching for coins around the house because payday is four days away.
Almost always, yeah. Not if I’m in a desperate rush, or if it’s really dirty, but money’s money, and even if I’m not so poor that the penny jar’s basically my emergency savings any more, it’s still good for charity collections, and the annoying £xx.04 or suchlike purchases.
Besides, you never know what you’ll find looking around, from £10 notes to lost jewellery to interesting bugs.
My “commute” to the school bus-stop follows the routes of schoolkids to two different schools, including little nooks outside the sweetshop/newsagents they buy their junk and underaged fags at. They tend to throw their coppers at the bins nearby there (and miss), so thats always good for an amble past if I’ve not already found any on my walk
I just counted the jar I collected last months finds in - £2.94 and 1 euro cent, made up of 1ps, 2ps, 5ps, 10s, 20s and one £1 coin. No 50p pieces oddly enough.
So not a huge amount, but enough to buy a pint
A penny isn’t perfectly good money. I do not bother picking up pennies. Most pennies are gross, they fill up too much space in my wallet, and are like ---- one cent.
Better question is why does the US government continue to print pennies that cost them about 1.7¢ per penny to produce. So when the government mints about 5 billion pennies a year, they actually lose about $35 million dollars in the process.
We no longer have 1c or 2c pieces, they were taken out of circulation ages back, so getting them in change when I visited Vegas a few months back was a culture shock.
I’ll pick up $1 or $2 coins, maybe a 50c, but not anything smaller. All I do when I get home anyway is empty any coins out of my pockets into two tins. Silver in one, gold in the other. I’s sometimes grab a couple out to tip a Pizza delivery guy or to use in the supermarket trolley but I generally don’t carry them.
Last time I emptied those two tins I got $900.
Nickels are an even bigger waste to produce.
Anyway, as stated in previous threads on this topic, I do pick up coins from the bottom of the pool we swim at. Plus other items that annoy me. I like “going blank” while swimming and seeing something on the pool bottom breaks that.
So a few days ago there was a penny on the bottom and I picked it up. After swimming, I was sitting on a bleacher for a bit and saw another penny ay my feet. I picked it up just to be consistent. Why would I pick up a penny there less than an hour ago and not one right here?
I’m a Canadian and production of pennies stopped May 2012 and distribution February 2013. A few years before production stoppage, I started throwing them out because they were essentially useless, to the point of having a pocket full of washers.
I’m glad that production and distribution were ceased and their disappearance from public life followed surprisingly and happily rapidly.
Not only is it money, but it’s a good source for old, grungy, corroded pennies. Those make for the most interesting-looking pressed pennies, in a souvenir machine or railroad tracks, and they can also be used for a neat little chemistry experiment copper-plating other coins.