It’s 2015, and my telephone is what I use to pay for at least 50 percent of the things I buy. Norm Macdonald put it best on the final David Letterman show when he said, “It was all different back then, you know. It was back then, I remember, if you wanted to take a picture, you would use a camera – not a telephone. As a matter of fact, if you used a telephone, people would look at you odd.” He has a point. Physical money, for a lot of people, is a thing of the past. Everything is connected to the phone. Whether you use Paypal, WePay, Apple pay, Venmo or any of the other services out there right now, dollars and cents are now primarily numbers on a screen inside your pocket.
So, what do we do when our money is in small round pieces of metal piled up in puggy banks, five-gallon water jugs, or under our mattresses? Other than bringing it to your local bank or Coinstar, there must be something else to do with all of those Abraham Lincolns collecting dust.
Resurface a table
In a time when flea markets and thrift shops are the trend, why not give that old table a shiny new finish? More than a few people have created DIY articles on surfacing tables with pennies and giving them a very unique look! The examples I am submitting are with pennies, but certainly any currency could work. Especially with the different colors of silver, copper, and gold that U.S. change comes in.Resurface a counter
Not happy with that old counter? Instead of spending all the money on remodeling your kitchen, why not brighten things up with a thin film of change? Surprisingly enough, this is way cheaper than buying costly tile or granite materials. At about $2.00 per square foot, you’re budget will be way less than with the $50-$100 per square foot for something like granite.Kitchen Backsplash
Similar to my recommendation of resurfacing a counter or table, kitchen backsplashes are another costly upgrade to your kitchen. Kitchen backsplashes, even made with recycled glass tile, average about $20-$30 per square foot, according to homewyse.com. But with the average of $2.00 per square foot for a backsplash made of pennies, you can save some pennies by using pennies.Create Jewelry
DIY jewelry seems to be a popular item on the internet these days. So much so that popular shows, like Portlandia, have taken friendly jabs at its popularity. But with platforms like etsy or storenvy, it is easy enough to create and sell your own jewelry. And even if you don’t want to sell the jewelry you create, it’s still a fun craft with millions of possibilities. You could even consider mixing in some recycled glass beads to make your jewelry really creative – and eco-friendly.Start a collection of pressed pennies
Pressed pennies are a popular souvenir. I have them from aquariums, zoos and other tourist destinations like the Golden Gate Bridge. They generally cost about $0.51 cents. $0.50 going to the machine, and the one penny coming back to you with an imprint that allows you to remember the destination you went to. Much like any other “collectible item,” there is a market if you’re looking to make a little bit of cash. I’m actually surprised people pay for these, but alas, there are even some from my local aquarium, The Mystic Aquarium, on pennycollector.com.
