Monday, June 22, 1998

Why Does Change Collect?
by Jennifer Silber (TMF Amused)

There have been a spate of Fribbles recently offering suggestions on what to do with the loose change that inevitably collects. All were wonderful Foolish ideas that provided great, long-ranging uses for the pounds of coinage. Yet they all caused me to ponder why change must collect at all? Spend it!

Now, before you go flaming me for being a spendthrift, there is logic in this. Smaller denominations are easier to spend -- you'll notice if you're at an amusement park or carnival or similar setting that game operators and food booth cashiers will be more likely to give you ten $1 bills than one $10. This is because you'll be more likely to plow those ones back into more cotton candy, more soda, and more rounds of skee-ball than if you had to break a ten. So why doesn't this philosophy filter down to the loose change?

The amusement park is a great setting for this example, actually. If I have a yen for skee-ball, I'll set my limit at the change that's in my pocket right then. Once I go through the dollar or so, I've had a few good games, I've savored them more because I knew they were going to end soon, and I've cut myself off before I could spend $20 in pursuit of a "prize" that would retail for about $2.63 anywhere else. That $20 is then a lot easier for me to put away in my savings than a pile of ones and a bag of coins would be.

So if you're looking for a way to get rid of your change and preserve the larger denominations for longer-range goals, try this: Before you leave your house, put about a dollar's worth of change in your pocket. As you go through your day, spend the change along with the bills. See if you can come home without any change in your pocket. If you can, excellent! Put the larger bills, the ones you didn't break, to work for you! If you can't, then you'll just have to check the Fribble archives for another idea of how to get rid of it Foolishly.

[The Editor vows that this is the last of the loose-change Fribbles... honestly... I'm not kidding... stop laughing already!]

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