Day 32

Day 32: Manhasset, NY

$0.01 found

King Kullen, Manhasset: $0.01

Today is the beginning of the second month of my search for the streets of gold and I have definitely learned a lot.  I can tell you with some certainty now in which areas I am likely to find change on the ground.  To come to the end of the first month and already have found so much money is incredible to me.  I know a lot of my readers have been wondering what my Year-To-Date dollar amount is, and I'm excited to say that at the end of the day yesterday, I had found $5.73 and B/.0.01.  That is almost double what I thought my average would be!  A lot of that has to do with the great find on Day 27, but in no way does that detract from the overall takeaway of this project.  There is money to be found on the streets and plenty of it.  It just is not always clear why the money is left there.  Throughout the course of the first month, I have learned and noticed a lot about both this project and people in general.  So here are the top five things that I can take away from my first month.

1. People that know about my project love to tell me when they find money.

This is awesome, and please continue.  What this means is that people are actually noticing and perhaps making a small change in their lives.  Pun intended.  Did you find a dollar?  Two?  A nickel?  That is fantastic.  Keep telling me, post it on this blog in the comments, and tell your friends to pick up all the money they see on the ground as well.

2. There are more reasons for money to be on the ground than I had originally expected.

I am starting to categorize each find in my mind.  There are quite a few reasons why money might be left when dropped, but as I wrote on Day 27, there are many as to why money might be left on the ground for much longer.  A commenter on that post pointed me to a pretty amazing TED talk that delves into how we hold ourselves back because of our own fears and inability to be vulnerable.  I have included it below because it really hits home.  Brene Brown on Vulnerability:

3. New York City is the perfect place for a project like this one.

The requirements for a city in which a project like this can work are few, but New York City meets them all. Both the amount of foot traffic, and the number of places that require the exchange of small change need to be large in number.  There needs to be areas in which there is not a standard every day routine.  I have not spent much time down there this year so far, but I imagine that the financial district in Manhattan will be far less lucrative than Times Square, even though it is still heavily frequented on a day to day basis.  I am also about to spend a long time in Los Angeles and California in general.  It will definitely be interesting to see how that affects my numbers.  The same goes for this summer when I spend close to three months in Germany.

4. I hate walking around with my head down.

One of the detriments to this blog is that I am constantly looking around for change.  This might be a bit much, and maybe going passed the original intention in starting this project, but now I am deep in it and can not change now.  It has been especially difficult when walking with one other person, or in a group of people.  I have found it difficult to carry on a conversation and look around for change at the same time.  There is a lot of human connection that you miss when you fail to make eye contact with the person with whom you are speaking.

5. I have stopped caring what the people around me are thinking when I stoop to pick up money and block the way for other people.

This is not something I ever had a problem with, but coins are not always the easiest items to pick up off the ground, and when I am on the stairs during rush hour, and I see a penny, stopping to pick it up definitely makes me a little red in the face.  However, after a month of doing this almost every day, I no longer really care.  I am not ever so late that I do not have the time to stop and pick up money, and each time I find money, I feel like I have won some small lottery.