How Much Are We Really Saving?

Remember back in April when I wrote a post called The True Value Of A Penny?  No?  Well, you should go read it.  It has Ryan Gosling in it.

In the event that you’re opposed to clicking links that promise Ryan Gosling (do you also hate puppies and life?), then just know that the post contains the fact that it costs the US government 2.4 cents to make a penny.

The US Mint made just under 5 billion pennies in 2011.  At 2.4 cents a piece, that’s a total of $120 million dollars spent making a coin that is more likely to be used as a bingo marker by your grandmother than actually be spent.

$120 million dollars.  People trample strangers in line on Black Friday for less than that.

But there is good news.  It seems the US Mint has finally realized that they’re losing money on this deal, and’they’ve set out to fix the problem.  They’re going to change the metal composition of pennies*. (Surprise- those little copper coins are actually only about 2.5% copper.  The rest is zinc.)

The US Mint estimates that changing the composition of the coins will save them $75 million per year.  Subtract that from their current production expense of $120 million, and you get $45 million.  Then, divide that by the 5 billion pennies the US Mint will, um, mint, and you’ll see that the government will be paying about 1 cent per coin.

Sounds like a good deal, huh?  Almost makes you like the penny again.

But wait, this story doesn’t end here.  You see, the US Mint is also changing the composition of the nickel, since those five-cent pieces cost 11.2 cents per coin to make.  So, doing the math on that one, we get the following:

Roughly 1 billion nickels x 11.2 cents a piece = $112 million dollars spent for coins actually worth about $50 million.

$112 million for nickels plus $120 million for pennies = $232 million for one year’s production of coins with a face value of $110 million.

$232 million – the $75 million savings the US Mint estimates = $157 million.

Divide that $157 million by the 6 billion nickels and pennies the US Mint will spit out, and adjust for the fact that it costs nearly 5 times more to make a nickel than a penny, and you get the new values:

1.57 cents to make a penny, and 7.22 cents to make a nickel.

Ooh, so close to balance, and yet so far.  Because even with the lowered cost, the US Mint will still be losing $56.4 million per year in production costs.

On the bright side, the US Mint makes 13.9 cents per quarter they produce, and 4.35 cents per dime.  The down side is that there aren’t enough quarters and dimes made each year to balance out the deficit from pennies and nickels.

Of course, we could solve the problem entirely by eliminating pennies and nickels from the US currency.  We’d save $157 million a year.

But then we’d have to find new bingo markers for Grandma… Hmm.  There may be no winner here.

Oh, and one final mind-blowing revelation: nickels are actually 75% copper.

*source: http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2012/03/28/treasury-to-cut-costs-by-remaking-coins-replacing-paper/

Penny-Sized Penny Stories (And A Commentary on A Facebook Comment)

The best theme for today’s Penny Story is “miscellaneous.”   Rather than a cohesive (or as usually the case for me, a mostly cohesive) blog post, I’ve got several small money-related stories.  Penny penny stories, if you will.

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1. Art Club

At art club last night (Yes, I am in an art club.  No, this does not mean I can draw. I live in fear that the club will discover this and kick me out), I asked if anyone had a cool story about a penny.  I got this one:

“When my sister and I were kids, she told me that if we put pennies under our pillows, they’d multiply.  Being young, I believed her.  I would count out some pennies, put them under my pillow, say the magic words with her, and then recount the pennies.  There would always be more pennies afterwards than there were before.  This might have been because I was too young to count properly, or because my sister was sneaking extra pennies into the pile, but it was still pretty cool to me.”

You’ve got to love older sisters and their tales of magic.  I’m pretty sure I terrorized both of my younger sisters with fake magical powers when we were younger.  For some reason, they both still like me.  Go figure.

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2. Art Club Part II

Also at art club last night, someone else mentioned that they knew a person who would sweep up pennies on the floor and then throw them away.  Yes, you read that right- they would THROW AWAY THE PENNIES.  Like they were made of dust rather than precious copper and zinc.  I’m proud to say all the club members paused at that statement.  These people get it- pennies matter.

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3. The Best Facebook Response By A Student Loan Company

Let me start by saying that I do enjoy working with my undergrad student loan company.  They are polite, helpful and supportive every time that I call.  This might be because I’m actually sending them money each month rather than just calling to complain, but that’s beside the point.  The point is, I got an email from them the other day, telling me that if I liked their page on Facebook, I could be entered to win either an iPad or a Macbook.  I already have an iPad and I don’t really care for Macs (chill out hipsters- Macs don’t care for me either.  Long story), but I figured it was worth it to see what kind of stuff the company had on their FB page.

It turns out they answer questions and respond to every comment on their FB page, usually within minutes.  That’s pretty impressive, and shows that the company is living up to their claim that they’re open 24/7.  So, not being one to miss an opportunity to plug my own blog, I posted a comment.  This is what happened.

There’s so much brilliance here, I can’t even handle it.

I wasn’t completely sucking up.  Like I said earlier, Nelnet is much nicer than my graduate student loan company.  That’s mainly because my grad student loan company can’t be bothered to answer their phone or check their fax machine.  Once I finally do reach a human, they’ve been invariably polite and helpful.  It’s just a lot of work to get to that point.

But let’s refocus on this reply, particularly the “we wish we could keep you forever!” line.  They wish they could keep me forever?!  What is that supposed to mean?  The way I see it, there are two options:

1. “We wish we could keep you forever!” = “We love having you send us money each month! Thanks for being a great customer!”
2. “We wish we could keep you forever!” = “Legally, we can’t keep charging you interest forever, but boy do we wish we could!”

One is nice and polite, the other is a bit more sinister.  I’m not sure which I’d prefer: a company that sucks up to me as much as I suck up to them, or a company that never misses an opportunity for truth in advertising.  When I saw that line, I figured that either Adam here is a master of double-meanings, or he read Monday’s entry about why I overthink everything and thought it would be funny to mess with me.  Either way, well played Adam.  Well played.

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That one line by itself would have been good enough, but Adam chose to follow it up with “let us know if there is anything we can help you with.”  At this point, I realized that he probably didn’t click the link and read my blog.  I think I’ve made it pretty clear here exactly with what I could use help.  In case I haven’t, allow me to make a short list:

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1. A full-time job, preferably one with a yearly salary well into the 5 digits.
2. A check (or two, or three.  I’m not picky) for $8,851.13, made out to either me or the loan company, and preferably drawn on a real bank account.
3. For people to see that paying off debt doesn’t have to be such a scary thing- and that sometimes doing it publicly can be a lot of fun.

In Adam’s defense, he’s got a lot on his plate: FB comments to moderate, clever double-entrees to craft, and since he’s likely a social media intern, probably his own student loans to worry about.  He can’t be bothered to click on every link that someone posts on the FB page that he’s been assigned to monitor.  But his response to my post, whether intentionally clever or not, made my day and provided the inspiration for this entry.  So, really, a double win.

Not a bad start to a Thursday.

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As always, if you have a story involving a penny, a person named penny, a phrase using the word penny, or just a cool story that you can tell in under 500 words (unless you’re me, and take over 1,000 words to get to the point), drop me a line and let me know.   Comments are below, and the email address is on the About Me page.  Or the About The Blog page.  Or the About Penny Stories page.  I can’t remember.  Sorry.

The True Value of a Penny

One of my favorite M*A*S*H quotes is when Hawkeye proclaims that we’re all just “eighty-nine cents worth of chemicals walking around lonely.”

You can trust him- he used to a doctor for pretend.

That episode aired in the 1970s, and when adjusted for inflation and the current cost of chemicals and minerals, that figure becomes $4.50 in today’s money.

$4.50 for the materials that make up a human body.  I don’t know about you, but it seems like most people would argue that they are worth more than the cost of a Happy Meal.

There must be more to us than meets the eye (or microscope).

In the same line of thinking (at least for my brain), I’ve been wondering about the true value of a penny.  Yes, I know that it’s face value is 1 cent.  But just like with the human body, might there not be more than meets the eye with this little coin?

Four score and seven years ago,
I was worth a lot more than I am today.

Let’s assume you start the day with one penny in your pocket.  You set off down the street, whistling a merry tune and hoping to find a penny candy store.  You have one cent.

You remember that you work for the US Mint.  Due to budget constraints, your boss has implemented several new cost-savings measures.  One of those is that workers should be responsible for overly-expensive production values.  Since a penny is actually 97.5% zinc and 2.5% copper, it now costs 1.67 cents to make a penny.  You owe the US Government .67 cents.

As you trudge further down the street, no longer whistling, you meet a friend.  This is one of your most compassionate friends, and he offers you a penny for your thoughts. You have .33 cents.

Due to your new job-related woes and your friend’s genuine empathy, you pour out your heart (and simultaneously give  your two cents.) You owe your friend 1.67 cents.

As you bury your despondent head in your hands, you see a shiny new penny under the bench.  It is heads up.  You pick it up and suddenly feel the gentle hand of Lady Luck on your shoulder. Your friend accepts the penny and forgives the rest of the debt. You are broke, but at least you’re no longer in debt.

You pull yourself up by your bootstraps and continue on down the street.  You glance into the windows of the shops as you pass, casually admiring this season’s new shoes.  You freeze at the yogurt store window.  Inside, your significant other sits at a table, staring happily into the eyes of Ryan Gosling. The penny has dropped.  You owe your therapist 10,000 pennies for an hour-long appointment.

What can I say? The man knows how to save a penny. (Do you see what I did there? The woman he saved from a taxi in NYC was named Laurie Penny. Ryan Gosling sees what i did there. He's not sure he approves, though.)

As you exit the therapist’s office, you find another penny on the ground.  This one is heads down, but you figure your luck couldn’t get any worse, so you pick it up.  When you get home, you deposit it into your piggy bank.  A penny saved is a penny earned.

You sit down at your computer and realize it is April 14th, and you haven’t done your taxes yet.  You scramble to gather all your W2s and receipts, and start frantically typing numbers into online forms.  You pause at the Income entry with a look of horror. You owe the IRS another .13 cents on that penny.

You realize that you are no longer in the proper mindset to be doing taxes, and instead move to your favorite past time.  A few clicks later and you’ve got five vacation/ spur of the moment escape plan websites open in your browser.  As you click through pictures of sprawling sheep farms in New Zealand, a pop-up appears.  It promises an easy calculator for figuring out the exchange rate between US dollars and New Zealand dollars.  You type in the pathetic two-digit figure that represents your net worth at this moment.  Your brain figuratively explodes at the result. There are no pennies in New Zealand as of April 1990.

This lamb has just been told he doesn't have to carry small change anymore. I sure hope no one is pulling the wool over his eyes...

You pack your bags and get on the next flight.  As you settle into your cushy coach accommodations for the 18-hour flight, you think that perhaps your luck is finally changing. The flight attendant gives you a complimentary bag of peanuts.

The true value of a penny: a new life in New Zealand.  And a bag of peanuts.

See?  I told you that there was more to the penny than meets the eye.

10 Other Uses For The Canadian Penny

In case you haven’t heard, all of Canada are losing their cents (ha- puns on the name of my blog!).  Apparently, they’ve run into the same problem that we have here in the US- it costs more than a penny to make a penny.  This is due to the rising costs of metals and various other economic factors (like the Canadians’ need to reclaim the space on top of their dressers).  The estimated savings for the Canadian federal government from killing the penny is $11 million dollars per year.  That’s no small change (pun #3).

So the question now is what will the Canadians do with all their pennies?  There is a social push right now to donate them to charity, and donation bins have been set up all across the Great White North to help encourage this behavior.  This is arguably the best thing you could do with your pennies, but for the fun of it- let’s brainstorm some other uses for the dearly departed Canadian penny.

10. Set up a hilarious Twitter account.  Oh wait, someone has already done this.  You can follow @CDN_Penny for such gems as “I’ve been at work for 154 years, which coincidentally is how long Canadians must work before retirement” and “I will live forever in your old purses and seasonal coats.”  The anonymous author behind the account has also started showyourroll.ca to connect potential donors to worthy charities.

9. Wallpaper your house.  What better way to increase the market value of your home than by making each room a veritable copper mine?  Folks in Canada (seriously. Can’t make this stuff up) did just that.  They took an abandoned bungalow slated for demolition and wallpapered a room with white painted pennies.  The end result actually looked pretty cool. (photo credit: http://viewoncanadianart.com/2009/11/05/urban-art-the-leona-drive-project-toronto/)

Presumably until the wrecking ball came through the wall.

8. Massive-scale Penny Personality Test.  Those of you who have been following along with me will remember this gem of a post.  It details how to run your own low-cost personality test on coworkers, friends, family members, or even strangers.  Essentially, 1) put a penny in plain view on the ground.  2) Watch to see who notices it.  3) Draw your own conclusions about who is too busy to notice the small things in life.  Now imagine that you had hundreds of pennies at your disposal.  You could line an entire sidewalk and see if anyone notices.  You could also modify the test and throw the coins at unsuspecting passersby, but I think that might skew the results.  (Note- if you attempt the previous modification, save some of those pennies. You’ll need them to bail you out of jail.)  (Note part II: don’t attempt the previous modification.)

7. Declare it a rainy day.  Remember how we were always told to “save our pennies for a rainy day”?  Well, I say we make our own rainy day.  Gather up the pennies and hit the local shops.  There’s a thing here in the US called a cashmob, where shoppers gather together and descend upon locally-owned shops in an attempt to inject some life into the sluggish economy.  I’m not saying this is the best idea, especially since shop owners might really hate you if you and 30 of your friends insist on paying in pennies, but you’ve gotta get rid of those pennies somehow and ultimately income is income when you’re running a small business.

6. Make a ton of wishes.  There’s not a one of us who hasn’t chucked a penny into a fountain at one point or another.  Some of us have undoubtedly attached wishes to those coins.  I personally have thrown quarters or half-dollars into fountains in the vain hope that the increased value of my bribe will make the fountain spirit guardians look favorably upon my wish.  (Since my adulthood wishes usually involve having more money, throwing larger coins may actually be counterproductive, but whatever.)  If you find yourself with dozens of coins lying around and you know of a fountain nearby, go ahead and make wishes.  Better yet, take a bag of pennies and start handing them out to strangers so everyone can make a wish.  The simple act of throwing a coin into a fountain can make anyone smile.  Plus, the owners of those fountains usually donate the coins to charity or back to the community (my local library uses the coins from their fountain to buy more books.)

5. Googly eyes.  There’s not a single thing that is productive about doing this, but let’s be honest here- googly eyes make everything better.  Just ask Anne Wheaton and her one-woman crusade to make the world a funnier place (check out #vandaleyes on Twitter if you don’t believe me.)  Get some self-adhesive mini-googly eyes (please do not hot glue things onto actual coins.  That’s probably illegal) and have fun.  Bonus points if you do this prior to doing any of the other items on the list.

Who says crappy photoshop pictures are out of style?

4. Do some gardening.  Did you know that pennies will increase the pH of the soil in your garden?  If you’re growing hydrangeas and having issues reaching that perfect pH balance, bury a few pennies near the roots.  There’s also an old wives’ tale that pennies will repel slugs.  If you have little ones who love to “help” in the garden, let them bury a few pennies around.  It will keep the slugs away, add some acidity to your soil, and keep their little fingers busy for hours.  Plus, you can let the kids dig up the pennies later when it’s time to plant new things.

3. Visit the graveyard.  A few weeks back I wrote a post about leaving pennies on my grandfather’s grave when I was a child.  I heard from a lot of you that it’s a fairly common practice.  If you live near the grave site of a family member or friend, why not go visit?  Leave a penny from a year that had some significance to both of you (their birth year, the year you two met, etc.).  It’s a great way of showing that the person is still remembered, and it may let you relive some happy memories.

2. Do some math or science.  Using pennies is a great way to introduce kids to the concept of money and counting.  Kids can easily grasp the idea that each coin is worth “one,” and using tangibles can be helpful in learning to count.  For an easy science lesson, take some tarnished pennies and drop them in a bath of vinegar and table salt.  The reaction is quick, and the pennies will get their shine back.  The reaction is fairly temporary, so the kids can watch the pennies turn back to tarnished, and then “clean” them all over again.

1. Get some good luck.  Time for some more old wives’ tales.  Putting a penny over each doorway of a house will ensure good luck for all inhabitants.  Dropping a penny on the floor and sweeping it under a couch or table will ensure the household will always have money.  Picking up a heads-up penny off the ground will bring good luck.  Leaving a heads-up penny on the ground for someone else will bring good luck to you both.

Whatever you decide to do with your pennies, make sure that it makes you happy.  A smile may be free, but come on- a smile doesn’t make a happy jingling noise in your pocket like a penny does.  Oh, and in case you still need a smile: click on this link to see that the Canadian government has a better sense of humor than the US.  (This is the only time that I’ve ever laughed while listening to NPR.)

Do you have other uses for the Canadian penny (or pennies in general?)  Drop me a comment and let me know.

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Ok, tell me that you didn’t just smile at that picture.  I figured we all needed a smile today.

It’s been a hell of a week over here for me.  I’ve been fighting some stomach issues (comes with the food allergy territory) and some head issues (comes with the everything-else allergy territory).  Today I finally got a diagnosis: the oh-so-specific “super bug.”  With that came new antibiotics, new anti-vertigo meds, and new probiotics (yep- I’ve got one of those kinds of doctors).  So, while I go wait for the room to stop spinning and enjoy a breakfast of half a banana, you go enjoy that picture of a truck.  Happy Thursday, everyone.

Pennies in the Dirt

When I was nine, my grandfather died.  Actually, I’m not sure how old I was.  I may have been younger, but I’m pretty sure I wasn’t older.  In any case, my exact age isn’t important here.  We’ll call it nine and move on with the story.

Some time after that, my dad took my older brother and I to Pennsylvania. We had family up there- my aunts, uncles, and cousins.  I hadn’t seen most of them since I had been a flower girl in my uncle’s wedding, and that had been at least three years (and two cousins) before this story.

I remember really enjoying this trip: playing with my cousin Paige, who is only a few months younger than me, a trip to McDonalds (no idea why this sticks out, but it might have something to do with the giant ball pit), at least a dozen rounds of Pretty Pretty Princesses (which my older brother refused to take part in), drives to see the old house that my dad and his siblings had grown up in, and at least one evening of playing stickball in the street until the streetlights came on.

But the thing I remember most is the trip to the graveyard.

It was one afternoon, probably close to the end of the visit.  I remember that the headstone was missing from the grave site (simply because it hadn’t been delivered yet), and I was very concerned that someone might forget which end of the grave that the feet were at.  There was a young tree right next to the grave, and I remember thinking that I would like a tree next to my grave one day.  That way, my ghost could spend all day in a tree reading. (I was a strange child, even at nine.)

As we got ready to leave, my dad reached into his pocket and pulled out three pennies.  He set them in a row on the grave, right over where my grandfather’s heart would have been.   There was a penny from 1984, one from 1986, and one from 1992, the birth years of my two brothers and I.  (Sorry to any of the other siblings reading this- you guys came along later.)  My dad said it was so that my grandfather would know that we had come to visit him.

That was sixteen (or so) years ago, and I can still remember walking away from the grave site, holding my dad’s hand and looking back at  the mound of freshly laid grass.  I don’t know if my grandfather saw us there that day, or if people even really do look down on us from Heaven, but I do know that I remember those three pennies in a line, and the lessons that I learned about the importance of family that day.

 

 

 

While looking up images for this blog post, I came across a lot of discussions about leaving coins at grave sites.  It’s apparently a more common practice than I thought, and there are dozens of meanings behind it.  This made me wonder- has anyone else left coins at a grave?  What inspired you to do so?  Let me know in the comments below.

Not a Penny Story

It’s been a week since the Sidewalk Penny Personality Test.  I’ve spent the last week trying to figure out a good follow-up to that.

I got nothing.

The biggest penny-related moment I’ve had this week was on Sunday at Zoo Atlanta.  It was $5 admission day, which with two admissions and tax came to a grand total of $11.26.  I handed the guy $12.  My roommate immediately said, “wait, I have 26 cents.”

She doesn’t know me at ALL, does she?

I stopped her and gladly took my 74 cents in change.  My roommate asked if I would be bothered by holding “all that change” the entire day.

I wasn’t.  I loved it.

I’m 74 cents closer to Harry Potter World.

Plus, I got to see a panda:

Aww, look at him and his fuzzy-wuzzy ears and huge stack of bamboo. It just makes you want to snuggle the 300-lb wild animal, doesn't it?

It cost more than a penny, but for the chance to see all the wonderful animals the Zoo offers, $5 was a steal.  Just like I stole the meerkats.

Keep The Change

“Keep the change.”

That’s what the girl in front of me at the gas station told the attendant.  From where I stood, I could see the green numbers on the register display.  She was leaving behind 53 cents.

53 cents!

I could do a lot with 53 cents.

I could buy two York Peppermint patties, or 5 Andes mints, from the candy display at the register.

Or I could combine it with the three dimes in my car’s center console and buy a taco at Taco Bell.

Or I could get a rocking new sticker for my trapper-keeper from one of the coin machines.

Or I could get a super bouncy ball from the other coin machine.

Or I could add it to my coin jar at home, the one I put all my spare change into at the end of each day, the one that is slowly accumulating my vacation fund money.

I could be 53 cents closer to Harry Potter World.

I wondered about that girl for a while.  Was she so financially secure that she didn’t need to care about measly fractions of a dollar?  Was she germophobic and worried that those coins had been in a small child’s mouth, or maybe more than one small child’s mouth?  Was she trying to tip the gas station attendant?  Or was it simply that she didn’t care about coins (she was quick enough to grab that $10 bill though), having been raised in a world dominated by plastic and automatic bank drafts.

In any case, she left her change sitting on the counter.  The attendant tossed the two quarters back into his drawer and put the three pennies into the tiny take-a-penny tray.  I realized I felt sad for that girl.  She obviously didn’t have a dream or a financial goal to work towards.  I stepped up to the counter and paid for my $37.92 in gas.  When I got home, I put those eight cents into the jar.

8 cents closer to Harry Potter World.

Penny Stories are published every Thursday.  If you have a story you want to share, drop me a line at kawrites0 at gmail dot com. (That’s a zero, not an o.  Just so we’re clear.)

Also, every time someone clicks Like or Share, an orphaned penny finds a home in someone’s pocket.  Just saying.

Penny Stories

I’ve been noticing pennies a lot more lately.  Maybe it’s because I’m pinching them more, or maybe because I work in retail and a startling amount of people pay large amounts in pennies, or maybe I’m just feeling sympathetic for the loner of the coin world.  In any case, I’m seeing pennies in a whole new light.

To that end, I’ve decided to start a new subsection of this blog.  Rather than listen to me go on week after week about my finances, I thought it would be nice to throw in some cheaper entertainment.  And what’s cheaper than a penny story?  Nothing, that’s what.

Here’s what a penny story is.  It’s a short story that has something to do with a penny, but often a larger meaning.  Dear Abby (yes, I read Dear Abby. Don’t judge me) occasionally runs Pennies From Heaven stories  that tell of people finding pennies from the year a dearly departed loved one was born, and finding hope and peace in that small sign.  Since the writers of these letters get 200 words or less to tell their story, the reader gets to feel all warm and fuzzy in less time than it takes for their coffee machine to heat up.

Every Thursday, I’ll post a new penny story.  Sometimes it will be my experiences, but I’m hoping to share other people’s stories too.  After all, other people are interesting, and you all already hear from me far too much anyway.  If you have a penny story that you’d like to share, let me know.  I’d love to hear it.

Til then, I’m off to count a few pennies.  Talk to you all on Monday.