Five Cent Man. Is He The Only One?

One of my customers at the Kiosk reckoned that another of my customers looked like Stephen Waugh (Former Australian Test Cricketer and Captain). I don’t really think so but will use the name Stephen in this item.

One day, actually one of many, Stephen threatened to bring in his $1.10 for the daily paper in 5 cent pieces, as he had so many of them. Stephen reckoned he was getting light on bigger change and must one day have to resort to that measure. Stephen was joking but I wasn’t. So one day I gave Stephen some plastic coin change bags and told him to put two dollars worth of 5 cent coins in each one and I would exchange them for bigger coins. The next day Stephen bought 4 bags in. I jokingly told him I wouldn’t accept anything less than $10 worth. Stephen then replied that I had then better give him more bags, so taking his $8 I gave him more bags. Sure enough the next day Stephen came back with another $10 worth, also claiming to still have more at home. It seems like my son before him, but more successfully so, Stephen has been casting these small coins aside and letting them build up.

Even Stephen was surprised at how much money he had sitting around not doing anything simply because he couldn’t be bothered in dealing with it because of it’s seemingly little value by itself.

This got me to wondering how much “wealth” we have lying around doing nothing, simply because we don’t recognize its true value unless gathered together.

What about you? What riches do you have just lying around gathering dust? Do you have “dollars” worth of wealth lying around untouched simply because you still see them as “five cent” items, and don’t recognize or value their collected worth? Over to you. Walter