Keep your pennies and keep your dimes.....

[Ponce]

because someday, your ass they will save.
==============================================

Guest Post: It's Impossible To "Get By" In The US
By: poorrichard

While the market cheers on the fantastic job “growth” of March 2010, the more astute of us are concerned with a growing tide of personal bankruptcies. March 2010 saw 158,000 bankruptcy filings. David Rosenberg of Gluskin-Sheff notes that this is an astounding 6,900 filings per day.

This latest filing is up 19% from March 2009’s number which occurred at the absolute nadir of the economic decline, when everyone thought the world was ending. It’s also up 35% from last month’s (February 2010) number.

Given the significance of this, I thought today we’d spend some time delving into numbers for the “median” American’s experience in the US today. Regrettably, much of the data is not up to date so we’ve got to go by 2008 numbers.

[Areyouanywhere]

I save my copper pennies and nickels.

[hoarder]

I throw my zinc pennies on the floor at the entrance of the store that gives them as change. Hopefully someone foolish enough to pick them up will cause cause a lot of commotion by blocking the entrance. It might even cause someone to get hurt and sue the merchant who refuses to round out to the nearest nickel.
Maybe someday these merchants will decide that rounding is cheaper than paying out lawsuits.
Wouldn't rounding be embarassing to the banksters?

[Ponce]

Hoarder........long ago I was in a certain country broke and cold, my meal of the day consisted of two pieces of candy that I would buy for a pennie...many pennies did I search for.

[hoarder]

Hoarder........long ago I was in a certain country broke and cold, my meal of the day consisted of two pieces of candy that I would buy for a pennie...many pennies did I search for.
If you went back to the same country with a handfull of zinc pennies today you wouldn't be able to buy a candy wrapper.

[Celtic Rogue]

Yep... save the nickles and coppers. They are still holding or exceding the face value. ;D ;D ;D

[cigarlover]

great so even if my penny is worth .02 then what? What can I buy with 1 or 2 cents? A nickle? Dime? Nada. I barely bother with dollars anymore. If my change is less than a dollar I dont even bother waiting for it. All that change just drags my pants down.

[Ponce]

Well Cigar, if you were to place all my loose change ontop of me it would squash me like a pankake.

[oldmansmith]

Serious question here Ponce, what treasury coins should we hoard? All of them, including sackajaewa and "golden" presidential dollars?

I'm not talking about copper pennies being worth two cents or nickels being worth 7 or whatever..I'm talking about treasury issued currency versus FRN's. I think that there may be something to it.

I have 5K in 20's buried in a jar and I am wondering if I should convert it all to coins.

[oldmansmith]

Got that covered, don't worry.

[Ponce]

Well, I do have $1,000 in $5.00.......$1,000 in $10.00 ........and $1,000 in $20.00.

A heck of a lot more in $100.00's and $5,000 in Canadians......plus silver and gold.

Almost forgot.......100 bricks of nickels and only God know how much in loose change.

A while back I was looking for one of my small short wave radios and found another small ammo can full of quarters.....and I have a feeling that there are more of them hiding somewhere..........oh yea, three 50 calibers ammo can and one tool box full of pennies......but for the nickels those are not part of my "loose" change.

I think that I am almost ready.........I would like to get at least $10,000 in Canedian.

[cigarlover]

Isnt that kind of like hoarding those worthless quarters that everyone now thinks is collectable? Treasury makes a killing selling all that crap and people basically give the treasury a loan for nada.. Hoarding other change is a similar deal isnt it? Why not just hoard gold and silver and be done with it?

[Gaillo]

Isnt that kind of like hoarding those worthless quarters that everyone now thinks is collectable? Treasury makes a killing selling all that crap and people basically give the treasury a loan for nada.. Hoarding other change is a similar deal isnt it? Why not just hoard gold and silver and be done with it?


Because SOME change (pre-1982 pennies and all nickels) are worth more for their METAL content than they are as currency. Just like other PM's, they have an intrinsic value. Currently, pre-'82 pennies are worth about $0.02 in copper, and nickels are worth around $0.07. The nice thing about pennies and nickels is that even if the value of the metal content falls, and drops below what you paid for them (face value), you can always SELL them for face value - it's a guaranteed no-loss metals investment! 8)

However... you need to collect a WHOLE LOT of them per dollar invested, so it does have its downside.

[Ponce]

Bought all the silver that I wanted or needed between 1982-2002.....there is need and then there is greed.

You will see that loose change, any kind, will come very handy.

Also remember that loose change is made by the US treasury and the paper dollar by the Fed..........one will stay here and the other one will be gone.

Some of the coins could be very valuable, to collectors, because I have been saving them for 33 years.

[Steal]

just picked up a box of pennies from the bank today. Seems they come in $25 boxes and all wrapped in plastic now. Hope to have time to sort through them this weekend. Looks good though, not too much shine to the majority of the rolls. Trying to teach my 3 yr old to decipher between pre 1982 was usless, so guess I will have to sort them.