My Family’s Money

I read an article over at Clever Dude about how he won’t pick up a penny that reminded me of all the money that can be made by simply picking up stuff – especially if you can pick up stuff in massive volumes. Now granted, $550 dollars worth of pennies over a nineteen year period is no promise of great wealth, especially when you consider that accumulating even that paltry sum would require you to find 8 of the sexiest presidents ever every day. I don’t know about you, but that just doesn’t happen to me – and I look!

So, to a certain extent I can understand how someone might pass up a penny. Yet I also see My Good Cents’ point in the fact that money is money is money. Just because $0.01 is 1/100,000,000 of $1 million doesn’t mean that pennies are bad or worthless. They are just the smallest step you can take towards that sum. Since I think My Good Cents has the more compelling argument I have found something else to help supplement my random change finding on my goal to $1 million in found money – recycling.

In the glorious state of California we charge people to drink most of their favorite beverages. Monster, Coke, Fanta Orange, all varieties of beer, bottled waters, and certain juices all have a very special tax on them, or at least their containers do. The CRV tax stands for California Redemption Value and it adds on $0.05 to $0.10 for every container you buy. Buy a 24 pack of water – you get $1.20 added to your bill. Buy 5 2-liter bottles of Coke – $0.50. You will never see this money again unless you return the container later. Here is the money making scheme – return other people’s containers for them, especially when they choose to leave them on the ground.

Walking by a empty can in California is just like walking past a shinny nickel, it just takes a little effort to get turn that can into a nickel. The state has made this relatively easy by requiring there to be places to redeem your recyclable goods near the places that you purchase them. This amounts to having a recycling outfit near every major supermarket in my area. It does take some time and effort so riches through recycling may not be for everyone.

At its peak in our household, we were finding scores of cans each week and our biweekly trip to the recycling center would net us between $15 and $25. It was like finding 131 pennies a day. What could you do with 131 pennies a day? Well, you could …

• Cover the costs of sponsoring another child through World Vision and be able to contribute an additional $60 to a birthday or holiday gift
• Buy 21 Invisible Children bracelets and help create jobs and change lives in war torn Uganda
• Provide 2% of the funds needed to build a water gravity system in Sierra Leon through the work of the Africa Well Fund, impacting many people for years to come by giving them access to clean, disease free drinking water

A penny really does matter.