Pain in the Penny No comments yet
Five pennies should equal a nickel. But, clearly, all change is not created equal. My top three reasons for using change are: (1) Tolls, (2) Parking meters, and (3) Vending machines. None of them take pennies. (Actually, one time I did have to pay the toll cashier in pennies and came to better understand the phase “if looks could kill”).
So, that means I need to put my change to work when I buy other stuff. But I’ve noticed, people just don’t like to wait for you to count out pennies. Dig around for a quarter? OK. Count out nine pennies? Not so much.
If I can’t use them, what’s the point of having a penny?
Woa! Hold on there. That kind of talk could have people throwing rotten tomatoes at me. There are 13,3000,000 results on google for “save the penny”. 1,710,000 for “penny lovers of America”.
According to Americans for Common Cents “eliminating the penny is a losing proposition because it will result in rounding to the nearest nickel and higher prices for America’s working families”.
It also would be a blow to American charities. Even 8-year-old Ronnie Freeman knows that. He just collected more than $3,000 in pennies for The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. It was part of Woodward Academy’s “Pennies for Patients” campaign. Ten million schools have raised millions since the fundraiser started in 1994.
If you think pennies are underrated, they are. So are most 8-year-olds. If you spend a morning with Ronnie Freeman like I did, you’ll walk away a little wowed. And a little more appreciative of those pennies.
