Hidden treasures

Today was an 8-penny day.

I found them all in one fell swoop.

I was cleaning out the cupboard with my baking supplies. An old coffee can yielded some rattling. Inside, eight old dull-finished pennies waited for me.

Day 4 total: $0.08

Experiment total to date: $0.15

Tomorrow's goal: $0.16

Yeah, I know...

I didn't get the Day 3 post in under the wire.

But I did find my four pennies.

Two of them were in the lint filter of the dryer. One was under the kitchen table when I was mopping. One was found by the gas pump at Sheetz.

Day Three total: $0.04

Experiment to date total: $0.07

It's ten a.m. here, and I haven't found one of my Day 4 pennies yet. Gotta go get cracking.

And we are LIVE!

The experiment has begun.

And we have our first penny.

Penny #1 was found on the front porch at approximately 5:45 a.m. Why was I on my porch at that ungodly hour on the Sunday after Halloween? It involved a rogue rooster and not pennies. Don't ask, because I'll tell you, and you really don't want to hear it.

But there he was. Abe. Grimly staring forward, stoic, waiting for me. A shiny 1994.

One penny down. One hundred million..or so...to go.

Bring 'em on.

Breathless with anticipation

Today is my last penny-free day.

Tomorrow...the journey begins.

I just know I'm going to see about $23,000 in pennies on the ground today. Especially since we'll be taking my son to walk in the Halloween parade. Four blocks of nothing to do but look down for dropped pennies.

I'm not looking...

I am deliberately ignoring my couch cushions. I'm not emptying pockets when I put things in the wash. (I fear this will come back to bite me in an ugly Bic pen incident.) There could be a small fortune in small change in the pockets of my newly unpacked winter coat. (And if there's a freak snowstorm between now and Sunday, I may freeze to death so I can avoid wearing it.)

It isn't that I don't want to find thte money that might be there.

I just don't want to find it NOW.

It's six days. I can wait six days, right?

Great expectations

Okay, my expectations are not those of someone anticipating a gigantic payday in five weeks. Don't get me wrong. I'm not depressed about it. I'm so excited to see how the pennies stack up.

The first day? I'm pretty sure I've got that nailed. The first week, in fact, seems like it will be a cake walk. I mean, seriously, it's only a grand total of $1.27.

Week Two? I think $162 is still doable, although it's definitely more of a challenge.

Week Three is clearly where things are going to start to get hairy. Coming up with $20,800 over a week's time? Let's call me "hopeful" but not necessarily "optimistic."

The real treasure for me is to see just how far the experiment can go. How close I can get to the ideal.

And more than that. I want to know exactly how much I'm taking for granted every day.

The Math

I don't claim to be a numbers person. I could claim that, but it would be a lie, and I just know that my 10th grade algebra teacher would show up at my door demanding an explanation.

But this isn't complicated math. I find myself capable of understanding the logistics of it. That's how simple it is.

Here are the numbers:

Day 1 - $0.01

Day 2 - $0.02

Day 3 - $0.04

Day 4 - $0.08

Day 5 - $0.16

Day 6 - $0.32

Day 7 - $0.64

Day 8 - $1.28

Day 9 - $2.56

Day 10 - $5.12

Day 11 - $10.24

Day 12 - $20.48

Day 13 - $40.96

Day 14 - $81.92

Day 15 - $163.84

Day 16 - $327.68

Day 17 - $655.36

Day 18 - $1310.72

Day 19 - $2621.44

Day 20 - $5242.88

Day 21 - $10,485.76

Day 22 - $20,971.52

Day 23 - $41,943.04

Day 24 - $83,886.08

Day 25 - $167,772.16

Day 26 - $335,544.32

Day 27 - $671,088.64

Day 28 - $1,342,177.28

Day 29 - $2,684,354.56

Day 30 - $5,368,709.12

Grand total - $10,737,418.23

Yeah...Day 15 looks kind of daunting. Until you realize what you have to find just a week later.

I wonder how much a metal detector costs?

The Pennies Mock Me.

For three days, every time I turn around, I see pennies everywhere.

They taunt me. The snicker and laugh and flaunt themselves.

They know very well that I cannot take advantage of them for almost three weeks. They are safe.

Sigh.

I just know they are planning to find places to hide.

Does a penny have to be real?

Well, this one sounds like a no-brainer, doesn't it?

And yet, the question has been posed. When is a penny a penny, and when is it a figment of your imagination? It's not quite that existential, actually. Virtual pennies. Should they count in the figure?

The idea arose because I have AdSense on this blog. Therefore, enough someones look at and click through, and I make a penny. Great. But, I'm making a ruling from the field and saying that is out of bounds.

Why?

Well, first and foremost, the idea that those pennies are earned. That's very different from found, and found is what we are investigating. I could cash a check, ask the bank to give it to me in pennies, and that would be outside the rules as well. Those pennies, while new to me, were not "found" money. They were acquired, probably even expected, so they arent pertinent to our experiment.

Secondly, virtual pennies don't exist yet. I can't pick them up, look at the year, scratch Lincoln's beard, stick them in a gumball machine. And as I have to have 10,000 pennies before they will send them to me, it's entirely probable that I wouldn't see them tangibly during the month of November at all.

Thanks to the Nest girls for their insight and recommendations. Love you!

The Rules...

I'm not just waiting to November 1st to start my experiment because I'll have a clean new calendar page. It's not just having an actual whole month.

It's that every experiment needs rules. Parameters. Things that keep you honest.

We know the hypothesis. One penny, in a geometrically increasing number, over a month, becomes not one one-hundredth of a dollar, but over ten million of them. Pretty cool theory.

The prediction? Well, if I told you I thought I'd be shopping for sports cars in December, I'd be a liar. (Plus, I live in the mountains in Pennsylvania. Buying a sports car in December in PA is a suicidal gesture.) My prediction is that after a couple weeks, finding the requisite number of pennies per day is going to get...challenging.

And so...we have to establish the rules for our experiment and its observation.

Rule 1: Only pennies found on the day in question are to be counted. I can't hedge my bets by hoarding the pennies found on Day 3 in anticipation of Day 18.

Rule 2: Only truly newly found pennies are to be counted. I can't pick pennies out of my purse or the coin cup in my car. Those are to be considered previously found, and as such, would violate Rule 1.

Rule 3: Pennies that I have but don't know about CAN be considered newly found. I mean, yes, I own the penny I might find under my son's car seat, but unlike the pennies in the coin cup, I don't know about this one, and therefore, have not previously found it. So, couch cushions, the lint filter in the dryer, etc., are all legal tender and up for grabs.

Rule 4: Falling short on one day does not change the prescribed number needed for the next day. For instance, if on Day 17, I can only find 65,000 pennies, the fact that I have fallen 536 pennies short doesn't change the goal for Day 18. That would change the final goal, and the final total is what we are experimenting to find. Subsequent tests of the hypothesis could change, and a real-number doubling may occur in another month.

Rule 5: Does a penny have to be a penny? Could a penny be loose change? Or a dollar bill? I'm going back and forth on this one at this point. Should the penny be a unit of measurement for the final product, or a tangible element? Is a found quarter any less a part of the total millions? Hmmm. Right now, I'm leaning toward allowing any found money, or at least, any found change. In part, this is because I am looking at how many pennies I'm going to have to find during the last few days of November, and I'm realizing I'm going to have to be baking pies and stuffing turkey during this period, which could slow me down a little. I may get strict with myself before November 1st, however, and demand a pennies-only policy.

Any holes in my logic? Are their points I'm missing? Let me know. I only have 20 days to work out the bugs.

See a penny...

It's an incredibly simple idea. Kind of brilliant. Kind of stupid. Kind of "well, that can't possibly work, can it?"

I don't really know. That's what I'm looking to find out.

The idea? That if you take one penny, and double it every day, you will have $10,737,418.24 by the end of the month.
I mean, that's kind of incredible. They're just pennies after all. Almost worthless. The little Lincoln-heads that you can squash into an oval at an amusement park as a souvenir. The things that make your purse real heavy and are always getting stuck in the liner of your winter coat when they fall through the pocket. The coins everyone is absolutely sure they have on them someplace to make exact change...and usually don't.

But what if?

What if you didn't spend a dollar twice a week on the thought that fate might smile and you (and two dozen factory workers on the other side of the country and a bunch of waitresses who pooled their tips after a bad bachelor party) could be the proud recipient of a $10 million jackpot. Well, a little under $5 million after taxes.

What if instead of paying for the idea of prosperity and independence and security and hope, you found it? You opened your eyes, you looked down, you watched for glints of copper EVERYWHERE, and you made it happen yourself.

Let's just see.

This idea has a countdown built in. But I am waiting to start. November 1st will be my Penny Day, the day I start to develop good cents. My grandmother has said it forever, and I am finally thinking she's absolutely right.

See a penny, pick it up, and all day long you'll have good luck.