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Penny Millionaire Project - Week 69

I spoke last week about my book, 'A Pocket Guide to Superstitions of the British Isles', which said that it was traditionally considered unlucky to find money. Well, I'm now on the next chapter, and the book has gone on to list some olde worlde proverbs about picking up money which have left me quite confused. The first quote I read with glee (for 'pin' read 'penny'):

"He that will not stoop for a pin, will never be worth a pound".

Great. I will, so it looks like I'm going to be rich.

And then they quoted the Welsh "Gwell plygu at bin, na phlygu at ddim" ("It is better to bend down for a pin, than to bend down for nothing" - it loses a little in the translation).

Still looking good.

But then they mentioned another two, less common maxims: "Pick up a pin and you pick up poverty", and "Pick up pins, pick up sorrow". 

So I'm hurtling towards either riches or destitute sorrow, and the odds look about even.

Monday morning, I came into work to a green Post-It, on which was written, in Nix's handwriting, "found on the floor where the water coolers used to be..... just over there!" with a 5p on it and a giant arrow pointing over to where we once kept our replacement bottles of water.

Later on, Kirsty handed over a penny she'd found "down an alleyway", and my mum gave me a penny that had been left by the checkout in Tesco.

Tuesday morning, I got to my desk and was greeted by my first Christmas cards of the season. I opened the first, which was from Natasha in our Sales team.... 

 

Inside, she'd enclosed a tuppence that I'm sure she must have found somewhere or other.

Tuesday afternoon, it was Nix again with a penny she'd found outside Little Bay restaurant in Battersea.

Week Sixty-nine

How much found: 10p

Total found so far: £52.24

How it could now be spent: a plus-size Christmas tree fancy dress costume.

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Forget all about 2009 and enjoy your break - we'll face it together next year. A very Merry Christmas!

Penny Millionaire Project - Week 68

I'm reading a book at the moment called 'A Pocket Guide to Superstitions of the British Isles'. I was reading it on the bus this week, and nearly dropped it when I saw under a heading 'Domestic Superstitions' that finding money is unlucky.

I've been finding money for a good year now, so as I sat there I started to reflect on all the things that have happened to me since the project began.

It's true that in the past year I seem to have had more big problems than I ever did before.

There was the day I fainted while waiting for my bus and came round on the pavement with one of my teeth smashed in half. Oh I can laugh about it now...

And there have been loads of niggly problems with my car - the time the window wouldn't go back up when I put it down to get through a ticket barrier, costing me £150 for a new regulator; the time I was rushing to get my mum to a karate exam and mangled the side skirt driving over a high kerb; the time my battery died as I drove home from my allotment, leaving me sat, alarm wailing, outside an older people's care home. Hmm.

Handily, further down the page, the book said that "throwing a shoe after someone" was lucky. Brilliant. As long as I keep doing this - whenever I'm handed money by someone, I remove a shoe and throw it at them, or if I find money myself, lob a shoe in the direction of the nearest stranger - it'll counteract any bad luck I might otherwise get. I wish I'd read this book last year.

Anyway, back to business as usual.

Monday - Craig asked me my policy on finding money down the back of the sofa, I nodded, and he handed over a 20p.

Thursday morning, we had a fire alarm at work. A real one. Well, a real practice one, where we had to go and shiver outside in a fog of cigarette smoke. When all the excitement was over, we started trooping back to the office, and Nix spotted a penny on the pavement.

Later on Thursday, I wrestled with the decision for 5 seconds before ending up in Starbucks. It turned out to be absolutely the right thing to do, because I found a penny on the floor.

Week Sixty-eight

How much found: 22p

Total found so far: £52.14

How it could now be spent: a copy of Sharing Knowledge Across the Mediterranean Area: Towards a Partnership for Sustainable Management of Resources and the Prevention of Catastrophes (NATO ... Science Series: Human and Societal Dynamics).

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Penny Millionaire Project - Week 67

Thursday, two tales, no cash. The first from Kirsty - a muddy fiver she'd found in a puddle in Glasgow. She actually brought it in to show me, but I couldn't be taking that much dirty cash - it'd get her a week's worth of food from Aldi!

Next it was Nix, who tells me she passed by 3p she'd spotted on the bus floor as it pulled up to her stop. She couldn't face the chaos that would ensue if she held up the stampede to bend down and get it. A little disappointing that she didn't think to kick the coins out of the bus door as it opened and collect them from the pavement when she got out, but hey.

Friday afternoon, Simon came over with a 5p he'd found "in Gemma's pen pot" and asked if that would get him another mention on the blog. I suppose if you were being really pedantic and inflexible about it, technically that could be called theft, but I'd never be so ungrateful.

Sunday afternoon, I was queueing up to pay for my petrol, when a man who worked there sidled up to the queue with an "is this anybody's?", before bending down and picking up a fiver. He was stood right next to me! It would have been perfectly plausible for it to have been mine, all I needed to do was say "oh, yeah, thanks" but I knew it wasn't mine. Argh! In the end, I muttered weakly, "no it's yours, go for it", and kicked myself all the way home. Not easy to do when you're driving.

Later on Sunday I went to visit my nan, who handed me a penny she'd found in Boots in Windsor at 1.23pm the previous Saturday.

Week Sixty-seven

How much found: 6p

Total found so far: £51.92

How it could now be spent: a masthead navigation light for seagoing vessels.

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Penny Millionaire Project - Week 66

Wednesday morning I was plunged headlong into the horror that was The Bus That Never Came. I'd shivered hopefully at my stop for more than an hour, but it was all for nothing. Defiant over this miserable waste of my time, I decided I would snatch my destiny back from Green Line bus company. I was going to turn this potentially rubbish day into a good one. I phoned into work to tell them I'd take the day as holiday.

I ended up having a lovely time. I went home, scarfed up, and set out on a bracing walk down the Long Walk in Windsor. As my colleagues toiled harder than usual to compensate for my sudden absence, I admired deer, kicked through leaves, marvelled at the view back to Windsor Castle from the top of the walk, and what's more, found 2 pennies along the way. Thanks Green Line.

Thursday morning the bus disappointingly turned up, so I had to go in to work. I arrived in the office and found I'd received a letter. It had been addressed to GAAPweb, not me specifically, so had been opened by our office manager Suz and put on my desk...

 

And underneath that note was this:

  

And that cheeky coin face set me up for the rest of the day. A very sincere thank you to Jayne from Graduate Prospects for taking the time and trouble to not only post me cash, but go the extra mile and arrange it into a smile. I am humbled. 

I guess I should say here, all money-based artwork I'm sent will of course appear in this blog. I love art. I've actually got quite an appreciation for life-size sculpture.

Thursday, Kirsty shouted across to me from her desk "I just found this and I've no idea where it came from", and brought me over a penny. That'll do nicely.

Week Sixty-six

How much found: 31p

Total found so far: £51.86

How it could now be spent: an Angel by Thierry Mugler gift set.

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Penny Millionaire Project - Week 65

On Monday I was cornered by Simon, who bent my ear with a penny-related story, but didn't compensate me with any cash. Breathlessly, like a kiddie who desperately needed to tell me what he'd got for Christmas, he said he'd got around to cashing in his odd 2ps and 1ps jar, and asked me repeatedly to guess how much was in it.

I'm a terrible cynic and my impressedness threshold is lower than the average person's, so I thought of a figure that'd impress me, then adjusted the figure to take into account Simon's more easily excited disposition.

"£25?" I said hopefully.

He could barely contain himself. "£50.82!" 

And what's more, his partner had collected £80 too, "from various sources lying around" (I'm hoping he didn't mean incapacitated people). 

They're going to use their reclaimed £130.82 to pay for flights to Sicily.

Wednesday, there was some actual money for me. I was walking up Kensington High Street with Kirsty at lunchtime and she spotted a 5p on the floor.

Saturday, I'd gone to Tesco to scour the reduced bins. The lure of those yellow stickers is profound. I'd just paid for my half-price, 56p-for-4 chocolate iced doughnuts at the self-service till and collected my change, when I noticed a pound in the rejected coins slot. I'd only paid with a pound, and got the right change, so it definitely hadn't been mine. There's a chance it could be one of the one in 50 British pound coins that are fake, but without being sure, if it looks like a pound, feels like a pound, and could potentially be spent like a pound, it is a pound!

Week Sixty-five

How much found: £1.05

Total found so far: £51.55

How it could now be spent: a pair of Dewalt Rigger boots.

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Penny Millionaire Project - Week 64

Tuesday, Craig brought in his first-ever contribution to the project. What took you?

He'd been to Cardiff at the weekend and on the Sunday morning was huddled with his friends, horribly hungover, outside Cardiff Castle. Left to his own devices, he would never have spotted it, but one of his less comatose friends absent-mindedly kicked a penny. Well, that was that. Like a dog surprised by a flying stick, Craig sprung into action and retrieved the cash.

Thursday lunchtime I was marching back from the new Cafe Nero that's opened in Hammersmith (I can't leave a new coffee place unvisited), and found a 2p on the pavement.

On the way down there, I'd heard a man repeatedly kicking a coin against the kerb as he stood in the gutter shouting into a mobile phone, and I nearly stayed until he'd finished so I could pick it up. In the end I decided it'd be less embarrassing for all concerned if I just tried to spot it on my way back. Unfortunately it was gone.

Thursday night the new-look Web team met up with our departed colleague Maz in Byron Burger on Kensington High Street. It was a chance to a) see Maz again, and b) introduce Maz to her replacement Nichola (intrigued? I bet you are. She'll introduce herself on here soon).

It was really good to see Maz and hear all about her new job. I'm sure it still would have been, even if she hadn't handed me a penny she'd found on the seat next to her on the train.

Friday morning, Nix handed over a brand-new 2008 5p she'd seen glinting in the sun on the traffic island as she crossed West Cromwell Road. 

She'd obviously woken up charmed, because not only did she start the day by finding cash on a sunny island, she then spotted two pennies on the office carpet as she strode off to lunch.

Week Sixty-four

How much found: 11p

Total found so far: £50.50

How it could now be spent: a London Aquarium, London Eye and Lunch Cruise.

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Penny Millionaire Project - Week 63

Thursday, Iain wandered over looking really pleased with himself. He never comes over to my desk for work-related reasons, our paths don't really cross in that way, so I knew it was something good instead.

He reached in his pocket and held his palm out to me, almost like he was offering me a tray of Ferrero Rocher. There on his palm sat something just as round and shiny, not as chocolatey, but more exciting - a glorious pound coin.

There's not much that comes close in the satisfaction stakes to being given a pound coin. I think it's probably more exciting than being given notes. There's something about that chunky, shiny solidity that makes you feel you're being given a real nugget of gold. If the world of money made more sense, you'd be able to buy a car with a pound coin. Maybe you will soon.

He said he'd seen it on the steps of Tesco at lunchtime and at first walked past it. Now, he reads this blog, and knew full well that that wasn't the thing to do at all. He climbed back up the stairs and scooped it up.

Later on in the afternoon, the Web team fancied cake. Sometimes, we just do. A couple of us took orders and went down to our little campus cafe, the Village Fayre.

Turns out, the Village Fayre didn't have much in the way of cake left, so we sneaked off campus, giggling like truanting schoolgirls the whole time, before reaching the more illustrious Cafe Continente. We bought various slabs of cake, Victoria sponge, lemon drizzle and carrot, and laughed all the way back to Kensington Village.

Feeling bold, I decided that it was no use taking cake back into work without a coffee to wash it down, and if we were going to be reprimanded, we may as well feast as we were being berated (confiscation not really being an option in the world of work).

We stopped by Village Fayre again to get cappuccinos, and found a penny on the floor.  Hee hee. Cake, coffee, laughter and money. And we didn't even get told off.

Week Sixty-three

How much found: £1.01

Total found so far: £50.39

How it could now be spent: a Fal Pro Saturn Pony Snug.

Penny Millionaire Project - Week 62

Monday - now, this hasn't happened for a good while, and it's something I'd really like to encourage, so I'm hoping by telling you all about it you'll want a piece of the action...

I received an envelope at the office. I'd been away on holiday (well, as much as you can call house and cat-sitting a holiday), and came back in to work to find it sat on my desk.

I opened it up and found this:

And best of all, this:

So thanks very much Ian from Phillips & Feeley Ltd. It's good to see that even now, as we stand on the brink of a (whisper it) recession, people can still find it in their hearts to give.

And as if to prove it, what followed was a veritable avalanche of money, all on Monday.

I came back from lunch to the now-traditional Post-it note, this time from Nix. She'd found a 5p on the floor of Vision Express and picked it up, she said, without anyone spotting. I liked that. There's a certain irony in her not being seen by any of the people shopping for new glasses.

Later on in the afternoon, I went off to make tea and came back to a one inch-high pile of coins plonked on my desk, totalling an impressive 49p. Our now-departed MD Graham had been clearing out his desk and came across it in his desk tidy. So long Graham, and thanks for all the pennies.

Week Sixty-two

How much found: 75p

Total found so far: £49.38

How it could now be spent: Philips TRESEmme Proceramic Breeze Hair Straighteners.

Recession schmecession! GAAPweb's got loads of jobs.

Penny Millionaire Project - Week 61

As in life, so in the project this week. A few littl'uns trying their hardest with their tiny efforts to contribute to the project, and one big loud one getting all the attention.

Monday, Maz came into work and straight over to me with a 50 pence piece. The self-service checkout at Sainsbury's had coughed it out in addition to her legitimate 1p change.

Defective equipment? Or Sainsbury's doing its bit to ease the pain of the credit crunch? Who can say? But worth investigating...

Tuesday, we had a couple of 'ooh, look' moments in quick succession, as Maz found a 2p under her desk, then Kirsty found a penny under her hard drive.

Thursday morning, Maz brought in a penny from somewhere, "from the weekend". Now usually I like my finders to be a little more vigilant about remembering details, but since she's leaving this week and we're all going to miss her, I'll let it slide.

Thursday afternoon, Kirsty 'Hawk Eye' Lennox was returning to her desk from a trip to the loo when she stopped suddenly in her tracks - she'd spotted a 5p on our office carpet.

Week Sixty-one

How much found: 59p

Total found so far: £48.63

How it could now be spent: an African Bullfrog, a chocolate millipede and a nice DVD of Conan the Destroyer for them to watch together.

Penny Millionaire Project - Week 60

Monday - Iain strolled over at 3pm sharp with a penny he'd found at Battersea Park Children's Zoo at the weekend.

He made the observation that his finds have really gone up since his daughter started walking, a fact he attributes to all the running around after her, "making sure she doesn't fall in dog poo".

Tuesday, my brother and sister handed over 17p they'd found on top of a bin in KFC at Chessington World of Adventures. It had been spotted by someone who worked there, who was about to take it, but they cornered him, explained the project and asked if they could have it. He relented.

Thursday, Nix gave me a 1 Euro coin and a 5 Euro cent coin she'd found at the bottom of the steps at West Kensington station on the platform going to Westminster. This is worth roughly 83p.

Friday, after a visit to the ladies, Kirsty returned to the office looking pleased with herself, even more than she usually does when returning from the loos. She waltzed over to me with a penny she'd found in 'unsavoury' cubicle number one.

Week Sixty

How much found: £1.02

Total found so far: £48.04

How it could now be spent: a Dark Angel Halloween costume.

Is it Halloween every day in your office? Time to find a new job.