Pick Up That Penny

Since I usually don't have small children in tow now that mine are grown, I realize how rarely I look down at the ground where I am standing. As a little experiment, I decided to watch where I was stepping this afternoon when I went to the grocery store to see what I may have been missing. I discovered a whole new appreciation for money.

My education began the minute I opened my car door in the parking lot of my local grocery store. On the ground was a penny. I bent down to pick up the penny and saw a nickel and three more pennies just under my car. If the old saying "find a penny, pick it up and all the day you'll have good luck" is true, this was going to be my lucky day!

On my way to the entrance door of the store, I saw something shiny in the gutter. It was the foil from a piece of gum - people just don't care about littering. As I picked up the trash to throw it away, I saw some change along the same gutter - two dimes, another nickel and 7 pennies in just about 20 feet of gutters. That is 41¢ in just a very few minutes.

Once inside the store, I kept my eyes open for more change and was once again rewarded in the produce section when I spotted a penny on the floor near the potatoes. It was becoming obvious to me that most people don't a penny worth the effort to bend over to retrieve it. At the check-out, the cashier had a few pennies on top of the drawer for the customer that didn't have exact change. It was easier for the cashier to drop the extra penny into her drawer than to count out the 4¢ change.

On the way back to my car, I decided to walk around the parking lot a bit. Lucky me, I found another 27¢ scattered around. I know this is NOT going to make me rich, but it was enough to pay for my gas to the store and back. I was sure this was an exceptional outing, so I stopped by two other parking lots on my way home. Besides an abundance of litter, I found a dollar bill in the bushes on one parking lot and 12¢ in change at the other one.

This story gets really interesting when I arrived home. After putting away the stuff I purchased, I sat down at my computer to look at my Ad Sense account (which I do often since I am so new to this whole writing for money thing). While I was gone, I earned another 62¢ on Ad Sense. I was so excited. My earnings on Ad Sense were growing, very slowly I was beginning to see where all my hard work was starting to pay off. I am making money a penny at a time.

Interesting Correlation

Even those of us hoping to make a decent income for Ad Sense won't pick up a penny on the sidewalk right in front of them. Isn't that exactly how we will make our money writing articles - ONE PENNY AT A TIME!