I’m pretty sure I have a jar of coins kicking around somewhere. I’m not sure if I know of anyone who doesn’t.

The value of saving each day is often overlooked. It shouldn’t be, no matter how small the amount. Here are a couple of cases in point.

My neighbor was a carpenter who put all of his spare change in a jar when he got home each night. When one jar would fill, he’d start another. Every year, he took his family of five on vacation for a week solely using each dollar that those coins added up to.

In high school, we’d grab rides home from each other and toss a dollar or two into the center console of our friend’s car for gas money. A few dollars didn’t get anyone very far, but a few people in the carpool could fill the tank every few days.

Some understand early on that smaller amounts can equate to larger amounts.

I recall hearing the story about when my Mom and her siblings were younger. They’d occasionally get some extra spending money from the aunts, uncles, and family friends that regularly came around to visit. In particular, one of her brothers had it figured out. While everyone else was asking for fifty cents or a dollar, he’d simply ask someone if they had any spare change. This technique led to people basically reaching into their pockets, grabbing most of the jangly content, and handing him the bounty, which almost always yielded him a higher payout than the rest.

Coin shortage

Over the past few years, the number of stores that have presumably never taken anything outside of a credit card for payment which also display a sign near the cash register that reads, “National Coin Shortage, Exact Change Only” is baffling to me. According to the Federal Reserve, “There is currently an adequate overall amount of coins in the economy.”

It seems that the issue is like everything else that got interrupted in the past few years. The proverbial ball needs to get rolling again. Those coins need to come out of the jars and back into the cash drawers. Once that happens, pocket holes will likewise be able to be blamed for losing lunch money again.

The big payout

When it comes to money, I’m not much of a gambler. I can just as quickly throw away my cash on something else. Believe me, I waste plenty of it. It’s something that I constantly work on. Sure, I’d like to win Powerball. I mean, let’s face it, who wouldn’t? The trouble is, I don’t buy tickets until it gets close to the billion-dollar mark. A mere couple-hundred million or less just isn’t worth my few bucks, or whatever a ticket costs these days.

I’m a writer, but I’m also a musician. One of my side gigs is writing music for film and television. I’ve done it for the past 10 years. It’s not the most glamorous avenue in the industry, but the pennies add up, quite substantially. Each placement is completely different. It could be $1.78 for a single airing of a television show in Norway that has 30 seconds of my music in it. It could also be a $40 per day payout for 20 seconds of music on a daytime talk show that runs every weekday year after year.

It’s a numbers game.

I write what I want and send it off to the music libraries that I’ve had the best success with over the years. It’s simple, more music equals more royalties. Sure, I could chase the five and ten thousand dollar upfront “lottery” payout emails looking for a very specific niche’ track. The thing is, those same emails are sent out to hundreds of other music producers. There’s absolutely no guarantee that my music will be chosen, but there is usually a guarantee that I’ve just submitted it to that library exclusively. This means that if it’s not chosen, I can’t send it anywhere else. It could quite possibly just sit there and never make any money for me, or it’ll make the same amount as anything else that I’ve written that brings in pennies. I focus on the pennies. The odds of me getting to the higher dollar amounts with this method are much more concrete and attainable.

Convenience store owner mindset

The U.S. Department of the Interior published a bulletin showing the Convenience Item and Fuel Markup Percentages as they related to 2021. Selling items in a convenience store is also a numbers game. Consistently selling the same items each day is how the pennies add up.

How many of us can recall or still have that same corner store that we regularly make a quick run to for bread, milk, or those weekly lottery tickets? How long have they been around? Are the store owners what we consider “rich” by today’s standards? I personally can’t attest to that. Do they seem to make enough money to stay in business and earn a living? It seems so.

Even your portfolio knows

According to The Motley Fool, the stock market has returned an average of 10% per year over the past 50 years. It seems that even in investing, the goal is, in a sense, to focus on the pennies, or rather, smaller and more consistent percentage gains. Of course, some investments offer higher returns. However, it comes back to the lottery ticket mentality. It’s a gamble.

Think about it

Do you consistently focus on and collect the pennies, saving for an annual retreat, a gift for yourself or someone else, or for a more secure rise to the financial top? Or, are you a “no risk, no reward” kind of person and go all in? Sometimes, it can come down to a balance between the two. Regardless, it’s important not to forget that the small stuff adds up, even the spare change. The bottom line is that it all counts. The almighty dollar can be earned, or saved, by remembering what adds up to it.

Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only. It is not intended to be investment or financial advice. Seek a duly licensed professional for investment or financial advice.