Whenever I want a new toy my wife asks me, “how are you going to pay for this?” To which I respond, “With my jug of coins of course.” This trick has worked many times but this time she’s really making me cash them in.
I told her when I bought a new computer I would cash in the jug-o-coins that I have been accumulating for over four years. It’s mostly all loose pocket change leftover from lunch. Since I began using a debit card a couple years ago, contributions to the jug have been less frequent.
I’m really interested to find out how much money is in there. I have dreams of it adding up to $500, but everyone I show it to says it’s closer to $200 or less. I remember when the jug was half full I took all the pennies out and cashed them in, and I know its pretty quarter heavy.
Any guesses? (Update: if you are within $1 I’ll give you 8%)
The jug weighs 27.5 lbs.
I’m dropping it off at our credit union this week, since they will cash it out without a fee. I will post the results when I get it.
02/24 UPDATE: No luck cashing out the jug today. The first credit union in Sandy didn’t have a coin machine, the sent me to another branch in Holliday and what do you know, they didn’t have one either. I would have hit up the 3rd branch, but by this time they were all closing in 10 minutes.
Stay tuned.
02/28 UPDATE: The final count is $369.99
Sweet. I have a jar that i’m hoping will make me rich one day. So, wishful thinking aside….27.5 lbs? Gotta be $278.23. The winner gets to keep it, right?
ok, my boyfriend did something similar to this (he has the coin sock) and that tube sock held a lot more than it looked, so i’m going to guess $350.00. and i agree with bcrockett. at least 5% to the winner.
I go $450
344.78 sucka
We the same thing a while back so I should know a thing or 2 about this and I’ll go for $452.43.
In the end it’ll all come down to the percentage of quarters vs pennies…
$314.26. Or whatever pi is.
I say $397.10
What toy are you looking at now? Or is it just payback time
@ John: yeah, payback time for my new system which came in at over $2200. So at least it will make a dent.
I’d go with 500.00 if it were all quarters. but more like 8.00 if it were all pennies. i’m thinkin’ in the 200.00 range but i bet it’s even less than that.
I’m going with $161.80 (or whatever phi is.)
Penny: 2.5g ($0.004/g)
Nickel: 5g ($0.01/g)
Dime: 2.268g ($0.0441/g)
Quarter: 5.67g ($0.0441/g)
27.5 lbs = 12473.79g
Value in Quarters or Dimes (minimum): $550.10
Value in Nickels: $124.74
Value in Pennies (minimum): $49.90
35 Quarters – 198g – 62.26%
32 Pennies – 80g – 25.16%
3 Nickels – 15g – 4.72%
11 Dimes – 25g – 7.85%
Total – 318g
Based on visual estimates:
62.26% Quarters: 7766.18g – $342.48
7.85% Dimes: 979.19g – $43.18
4.72% Nickels: 588.76g – $5.89
25.16% Pennies: 3138.4g – $12.55
Total: $404.10
Based on U.S. Circulation:
Production, Last 5 years: (% distribution) (Weight Ratio)
Pennies – 36907m (52.43%) (WR: 0.3921)
Nickels – 6742m (9.58%) (WR: 0.1433)
Dimes – 12789m (18.16%) (WR: 0.1232)
Quarters – 13948m (19.82%) (WR: 0.3415)
Total – 70386m
If you followed this pattern until it was half full, then eliminated all pennies, then followed this pattern until it was full again, you would have the following distribution:
40.85% Quarters: 5094.93g – $224.69
14.74% Dimes: 1838.05g – $81.01
17.14% Nickels: 2137.93g – $21.38
27.29% Pennies: 3404.36g – $13.62
Total = $340.7
Summary
Minimum (all pennies): $49.90
Maximum (all quarters): $550.10
Visual estimate: $404.10
Circulation estimate: $340.7
My guess: $404.10 (just because I can’t have gone to all that work and not pick one of the numbers!)
Awesome comment Nick. Before I posted this, I search for an online calculator that would let you enter in the weight and have it spit out an estimate range based on average loose change. Didn’t find anything, but it wouldn’t be hard to build. Just not sure how useful.
Thanks for digging in and doing it by hand!
I say $309.99
However I think Nick should get it, just for his effort
I stopped smoking by doing something similar. Instead of buying a pack of smokes I put the money in a jar. I had an item picked out to buy which was around the $400 which gave me a target. It made it easier to forgo the smokes. By the time I had the $400 the smoking urge was gone. Well OK, fell off the waggon once or twice but bumming a cig once a month rather than a pack a day was a huge improvement.
I am going to say $450.
It is a nice round number.
It’s spelled Holladay….
Thanks Mike.
Thanks for putting this information together
In return I’d like to lead you to a great resource that I’ve found. Here’s the link:
http://perfectopportunity.freehostia.com/GreenTea/index.html
[...] posted guesses were pretty close, Maria was the closest guessing $350, then John Y. at $397.10. Nick and all his [...]