Okay, here I go, sharing my “pennies man” story. It all started about 45 years ago. I was just walking down the street when I spotted a penny on the ground. Picked it up, and you know what? It felt like a little sign, a reminder to be grateful for what I have.
From that day on, I started collecting every single penny I could find. I mean, every single one. My friends thought I was a bit nuts, but I kept at it. Whenever I found a penny, I’d say a little prayer of thanks.
I stashed those pennies in these huge, 5-gallon water jugs, the kind you see in offices. Can you imagine? Over the years, those jugs started filling up. It became a bit of a hobby, a quirky habit of mine.
A small thing I insist on
- Pick up every penny I saw.
- Put the pennies into the water jugs.
- Keep them until the day I can’t.
Fast forward to 2015, I had a bunch of these jugs filled to the brim with pennies. I wasn’t really sure what I was going to do with them, but I liked having them around. Sentimental value, I guess. But my insurance company, they weren’t too happy. They stopped covering the pennies. Said it was too risky or something. It’s a bit of a problem now.
So, I decided it was time to take them to the bank. I loaded up my truck with those heavy jugs and drove over. The folks at the bank, they were pretty shocked, to say the least. I mean, who walks in with that many pennies?
They have this machine, a real time-saver, that counts coins. So they started running my pennies through it. Took a while, but we got them all counted. I felt a bit sad to see them go, but it was also kind of a relief. 45 years of collecting, and there it was, all counted and sorted.

I guess the moral of the story is, even the smallest things can add up to something big. And always be thankful, even for the little things, like a penny on the ground. That’s my “pennies man” story, hope you enjoyed it.