Next time you find a penny on the ground, pick it up. You never know where it might lead you to. Otha Anders didn’t know either. For 45 years, he collected every penny that came his way and eventually made a fortune. He turned it into an obsessive hobby and managed to sweep along the pupils he was working with.
One penny might get you nowhere, but 15 5-gallon water jugs will get you very far.
Anders was no stranger to praying and visiting the church. These were values he grew up on and raised his own family on. He would pray every day, and if, for any reason, he skipped a prayer (which didn’t happen very often) he would always come across a lost penny on the ground.
Anders said, “I became convinced that spotting a lost or dropped penny was an additional God-given incentive reminding me to always be thankful. There have been days when I failed to pray, and more often than not, a lost or dropped penny would show up to remind me.”
He felt that the pennies he found and took ownership of held a hidden message from the almighty God. That every penny was there for a reason and carries with it a story or profit. In Anders’s eye, there was no such thing as coincidence and if the pennies were scattered along his path he could not ignore them.
As the days and weeks went by, Otha’s penny collection was becoming almost too big to handle and was taking up a lot of space in his home. His penny pile was becoming the center of his day. It was all he could think about.
Anders and his friends placed all 15 5-gallon bottles of coins on his truck and headed to the bank. When the bank’s teller asked Anders how many coins he had, he said he didn’t know. He said he had no idea how many coins are in one bottle, let alone the entire lot. If he had to throw a wild guess he would have probably said around half a million pennies.
As Anders was organizing all of the penny bottles neatly on the bank floor, the employees gathered around to witness the phenomenon. 15 5-gallon bottles full of copper pennies is not something you see every day, and with the normal and boring lives they were living, this sight was the highlight of the year.
So How Much Did Anders Make?
The magic number was revealed. After 45 years of picking up lost pennies and requesting to receive change in pennies, Anders managed to save up to $5136.14. That is basically $114.14 picked up from the ground every single year.
The money Anders had collected was more than enough for his needs. After paying the dental bill, he decided to treat his family to a vacation, and if that wasn’t enough he chose to show his gratitude in life and donated whatever was left to his church. His faith didn’t betray him and he felt obliged to give back.
