What Will You Stop To Pick Up? A Penny? A Dime?

What are you willing to stop, bend over and pick up?

This is a question I often ask at dinner parties or backyard barbecues. Are you willing to stop in a parking lot, in the grocery store checkout lane or the gas pump and pick up a penny? A nickel? A dime!?! Not even a quarter?

I am always surprised to hear that most people won't even stop to pick up a quarter if they see one laying on the ground. I pick up pennies and not ashamed or afraid to admit it.

Pennies add up.

The other day I found a penny in the gas station while pumping gas. Took it home and it looked a bit off so I snapped a pic and sure enough it was missing the last number of the year. I looked it up and it is worth a couple of bucks. Of course I ended up forgetting about it and put it in my giant jar of coins, mixed it with all of the others.

Maybe it's because the discontinued the penny and people see it as worthless now? Or someone thinks it might be dirty, or simply not worth their time - but even a quarter? You can still buy a gumball at the grocery store vending machine and four quarters equals a dollar - to me that's real money.

Here is a list of popular roundup apps that help you save and invest your change. Sure it's already your money, but why not throw a little bit in to savings whenever possible. It adds up.

It's kinda like when a massive corporation asks you to round up to donate to a specific charitable organization. I'm not against charity and donating my time and money to worthy causes - but when a billion dollar massive company is asking me to donate and I have no idea where that money is actually going, or what cut they take of it before it gets there - it puts me off a bit. These massive companies keep raising prices all the while their profits are breaking numbers never heard of before - they don't really need to raise prices, its greed.

This rounding up strategy won't make you rich overnight, but every little bit helps and its change you probably won't miss going out of your bank, but you will notice it starting to add up. I do not like the idea of it costing you something like Acorns charges, but if you are doing high enough volume purchasing it might be worth it - its just they are the most popular.