If you see a penny...

As a grown up, I realize that through the course of life I have learned many valuable lessons. Some of them were taught to me by my mom and dad. Some of them I learned in school and through expereience. Many of them I learned from my aunts. Now, I am an aunt and my oldest niece recently started kindergarten. I know that they say everything you need to know you learn in kindergarten. I disagree. I believe that there are some things that one cannot learn in a classroom. These are lessons that can only be learned by living. So, here it is. A year's worth of tiny words of wisdom for all of the nieces and nephews out there, or really for anyone who will listen. They may not work for everybody and you may not agree with all of them, but each is a rule that I either try to live by or wish I did.

# 22 If you see a penny, pick it up.


I know quite a few people who actually throw pennies away. Perhaps they do this because pennies are annoying, and take a long time to save. Pennies are still money, just like nickels, dimes and dollars. Everytime that I find money on the ground, I pick it up and then it goes immediately into a jar. Let's just say that in a lifetime, these people throw away 1,000,000 pennies. This is $10,000. At a bank, with the interest on that, those people are just throwing away a total of $11,000. I don't know about you, but there are a lot of things I could do with that much money.
I always pick up change, no matter how small. It goes into a jar and as a rule, I try never to spend it, sans the few pieces that I try to give away each day. I recently opened a savings account and more than half of my opening deposit was change that I had been dropping in a jar for the last year. It really doesn't take that much effort to save pennies. Why throw them out? Money is good to have, no matter the amount. If you want to throw your pennies away, please just send them my way. I promise to give them a good home.