Picking Up Pennies

An article on WiseBread asked readers if they picked up fallen pennies, and if it's even worth your time? This got me thinking......What is my time worth.

I know that if a neighbor offered to pay me $5.00 to mow his lawn, I would probably tell him to take a hike. But if he offered to pay me $100.00, I might just do it. This tells me that Time and Effort are important factors.

As far as penny reconnaissance, testing these factors was quite simple. With a stop watch I timed myself picking up a penny. I after a couple of tries from a standing position it took about 2 seconds to pick a penny off the floor. So for 2 seconds of my time, I earned $0.01. That equates to a wage of about $18.00 an hour. According to Monster.com that is the equivalent wages of a sushi restaurant supervisor in San Jose, CA. On the other hand if you pick up a dime, you are earning the same wages as a highly qualified Neurosurgeon, or about $374K a year. Granted you are only working for a few seconds at a time, but I don't know many people that would pass up those kind of wages. Here a calculation breakdown:

$0.01 @ 2 seconds = $18/hour
$0.05 @ 2 seconds = $90/hour

$0.10 @ 2 seconds = $180/hour
$0.25 @ 2 seconds = $450/hour
$1.00 @ 2 seconds = $1,800/hour
$5.00 @ 2 seconds = $9,000/hour
$10.00 @ 2 seconds = $18,000/hour
$20.00 @ 2 seconds = $36,000/hour
$50.00 @ 2 seconds = $90,000/hour
$100.00 @ 2 seconds = $180,000/hour

After seeing the results of these calculations, I will always pick up dropped change.

Too bad I only pick up "heads", I'm superstitious like that.