A 73-year-old man in Louisiana did not originally start saving all of his pennies as a fun personal finance hack. He says that he began the habit 45 years ago as a reminder to pray every day. His collection grew with the help of a friend who had a similar collection of nickels and by simply holding on to every penny that passed through his hands.

“There have been days where I failed to pray and more often than not, a lost or dropped penny would show up to remind me,” he told the News-Star. From there, he tried to get a few pennies with every store transaction, and they added up after 45 years.

Bank employees split the plastic jugs open and poured them into a coin-counting machine, and since the machine’s bags only hold $50 worth of pennies, they had to be changed quite often.

The total came to more than half a million coins, stored in plastic jugs. He finally decided to give up the collection because his homeowner’s insurance wouldn’t cover it: it would take a very determined thief to run off with his penny hoard, but a fire or natural disaster could destroy them, taking the total value of the collection with it.

He plans to put the $5,136.14 toward his dental bills, but didn’t say whether he plans to start hoarding any type of coin over again. Cashing them in annually is fun and doesn’t take five hours: maybe he could try that from here out.

Louisiana man cashes in life savings in pennies [News-Star]

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