Miss Piggy: Every Penny Counts

My sisters and I like to buy little gifts for each other for no apparent reason.  In fact, we make up our own holidays so we don’t have to wait too long between special occasions to give each other special gifts.  One of these random gifts was Miss Piggy, the cutest plastic piggy within the city limits.

I’d read somewhere that an easy almost-unconscious way of saving money is to never spend any coins.  Instead of spending these coins, drop them in a jar.  When the jar was filled, take it to the bank to have it deposited in a savings account.  Instead of a jar, I had Miss Piggy.  Soon, I developed a habit of dropping any spare change into her.  After we were married, an amused Rick joined in my habit.  We made a game of it, trying to make Miss Piggy as "fat" as possible.  Then, Rick decided to clean out his car, where we discovered the motherlode of coins.  We barely managed to squeeze them all into Miss Piggy.  She must’ve weighed close to 7+ lbs. 

I called Bank of America to ask them about coin counting.  The girl on the phone informed me that they didn’t have a coin-counting machine of their own, but we could bring in our coins anyways.  What happens is that we would specify a random amount, which would be deposited into our account or paid out to us in cash.  Then, they would send the coins to an outside facility to have them counted.  If the total was more than the amount we specified, the balance would be added to our account.  If the total was less, the difference would be withdrawn out of our bank account. 

Good thing I called. 

When we arrived at our bank cradling my pink plastic pig, we were informed that they didn’t have a coin-counting machine.  I relayed my phone conversation from the day before to which the bank teller responded, "Oh," before whipping out a plastic bag for us to dump our coins into.  We spent approximately ten straight minutes shaking Miss Piggy vigorously in our attempt to dislodge every single coin out of every nook and cranny.  We garnered a lot of sideways looks and one outright chuckle for the racket we made in the otherwise hushed atmosphere, but we finally managed to empty Miss Piggy.  Handing the bag over, we picked the random amount of $20, sure the coins totaled more than that.  The teller sealed the bag, handing us a plastic strip ripped from the bag as our "receipt". 

A week later, I checked my bank account and was pleasantly surprised to see that the total amount had been, in fact, $76.11. 

Sure, a fortune it isn’t, but every dollar counts and this was a great windfall arising out of very little work and no lifestyle changes.  We’re planning on using that amount for emergency cash or if we need to buy any essentials when we first land in Vietnam. 

Hidden underneath my desk, Miss Piggy’s fattening up again.