Just a few days ago I wrote a post I entitled, Penny Power, in which I described one of the ways I amuse myself financially: I pick up money I find on the ground and in various other places, stuff it into a jar, and at the end of each year invest it for income.

For a while I've been recycling my aluminum cans. There is a metal salvage operation here where I live that purchases aluminum, amongst other metals. Lately the prices have been around .30 cents per pound, which isn't much, but it's more than zero.

Recently I managed to fill another thirteen gallon garbage bag with rinsed and crushed cans. I tied it off and set it aside until work or other errands would take me to the area of town where the salvage yard is. The bag held about seven pounds of cans.

Sometime this past weekend some of my neighbors must have decided to have a blowout party. I was taking some trash to the dumpster near my apartment and I discovered three garbage bags packed to bursting with empty beer cans sitting on the ground in front of the dumpster. As luck would have it, work was taking me right past the salvage yard, so I tossed them into the back of my truck and got my own bag of cans from my place.

Fifteen pounds, all total. The salvage yard cut me a check for $4.20, which I moved to my Forex hedge carry account where that small sum is now generating around 71% interest annually, or about 25 cents a month of interest income. All small amounts, all seemingly insignificant. In and of themselves, yes, they are insignificant. But considering that this is money from something that would otherwise just be waste, and further that I still have it plus residual, passive income, it's not insignificant. Little bits add up, and invested right, they add up to quite a lot.

Next up: tin power, because it turns out that the salvage yard will buy my empty food and coffee cans, too.