Is A Penny Saved A Penny Earned?
"A penny saved is a penny earned.
" I've put this old adage to the test in my mind a couple of times and it never seemed to make much sense.
Benjamin Franklin wrote this first (I'm assuming) in Poor Richard's Almanac.
Being somewhat sensible, I realized right off the bat that while Franklin's advice is sage; a penny was worth a heck of lot more then than it is now.
I also considered the amount of time and effort it would take to wrap up a thousand dollars worth of saved penny rolls and while the effort is considerably higher than minimum wage, it was only about twice that (not counting at all the overall time it would take to separate your pennies out from your regular change plus the time it would take to get the penny roll wrappers from the bank).
That was many years ago though and while the principle of a penny saved is a penny earned is as sound as it ever was, both technology and my attitude have changed (the former more convenient, the latter more flexible).
For one thing I live in Japan now and here the equivalent to a penny is an aluminum one-yen coin.
That coin, together with the copper alloy five-yen coin, have always been a nuisance to me and to get rid of them I'm always counting out exact change at the supermarket and such, which is time consuming.
There is also a mostly copper ten-yen coin, which is probably close in value to a penny in Franklin's time.
But these are of dubious convenience as well.
I decided then to start saving one, five, and ten-yen combinations in big glass jar.
It is already getting heavier and is lot more convenient than counting single yen at the store.
The great thing is that banks here now usually have an automatic money counting machine.
You just pour all your chump change in, spinners calculate it, and you choose the denomination you want it back in.
When my jar is full, I should make off with a cool $120 USD.
Sounds like sage advice indeed.
" I've put this old adage to the test in my mind a couple of times and it never seemed to make much sense.
Benjamin Franklin wrote this first (I'm assuming) in Poor Richard's Almanac.
Being somewhat sensible, I realized right off the bat that while Franklin's advice is sage; a penny was worth a heck of lot more then than it is now.
I also considered the amount of time and effort it would take to wrap up a thousand dollars worth of saved penny rolls and while the effort is considerably higher than minimum wage, it was only about twice that (not counting at all the overall time it would take to separate your pennies out from your regular change plus the time it would take to get the penny roll wrappers from the bank).
That was many years ago though and while the principle of a penny saved is a penny earned is as sound as it ever was, both technology and my attitude have changed (the former more convenient, the latter more flexible).
For one thing I live in Japan now and here the equivalent to a penny is an aluminum one-yen coin.
That coin, together with the copper alloy five-yen coin, have always been a nuisance to me and to get rid of them I'm always counting out exact change at the supermarket and such, which is time consuming.
There is also a mostly copper ten-yen coin, which is probably close in value to a penny in Franklin's time.
But these are of dubious convenience as well.
I decided then to start saving one, five, and ten-yen combinations in big glass jar.
It is already getting heavier and is lot more convenient than counting single yen at the store.
The great thing is that banks here now usually have an automatic money counting machine.
You just pour all your chump change in, spinners calculate it, and you choose the denomination you want it back in.
When my jar is full, I should make off with a cool $120 USD.
Sounds like sage advice indeed.
