A few months ago I wrote a post, Penny Power, in which I describe a little game of sorts I play to entertain myself. Quick recap: I put the money I find on the ground all throughout the year in a jar, then at the end of each year I count it up, deposit it with one of my banks and then send it off to join the rest of my investments.
2009's total came out to $7.43. It was mostly composed of pennies, but there were a healthy number of nickles and dimes in there, one quarter, and two $1 bills. All of those bits of money were just laying on the ground, waiting for someone to pick them up (both of the $1 bills were laying on the ground in plain sight, even!).
It's not a lot of money, and most people would just leave those tiny amounts on the ground. I plugged the money into one of my forex hedged carry trade accounts, which are earning around 63% annually at the moment, but even then most people would pass the money up.
Would you take a job that pays $36 an hour though?
How about if that job paid you by the second?
I don't know what your chances are of finding a job that pays $36 an hour, but I do know that no one is going to pay you at that rate for working for one second. However, if it only takes one second to pick up one penny...
Why don't people want free money? They sure seem to think that government has a lot of it to give away, and many clamor for that, but put free money right in front of them and they walk on by. Weird.
I suppose it's good for me if people ignore money on the ground though - more for me. I'm happy to pick up free capital and invest it at amazingly high rates of return. Time to start filling the Penny Power 2010 jar.
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