After going quite a long time not finding any money, yesterday I found three pennies on the ground as I wandered around Vancouver. I was quite impressed that I found them as I wasn’t even looking for them. Normally I’m scouring the ground as I walk, but because everything looks new-to-me around here, I haven’t had my eyes down for long stretches of time. And yet I found three pennies.

• One was outside a 7-Eleven store on West Georgia Street.
• One was in the pedestrian walkway inside BC Place as we left the BC Lions game.
• One was on the sidewalk somewhere I don’t recall anymore. Perhaps it was on the way to the SeaBus? Who knows.

Go check out my blog How Much Change Can you Find? to see my totals.

So the Change Challenge is officially over in 50 minutes from now, and unless Melanie e-mails me in the next while, I win! Haha. We managed to crack the $1 plateau though, and I was soooo close to breaking the barrier all by my lonesome, but to no avail. It was interesting to see how much we could find, and I must say I’m quite surprised that we weren’t able to find a lot. My Phillies friend over at Change is Good seems to find a ton of change on the ground all the time, and it’s not just because he’s got his little one scouting out the areas in front of him. Who knows why…are we Canadians more aware of our change because we’ve got Loonies & Toonies to keep track of too? Do Americans only spend bills? Who knows. All I can tell you is that I have been keeping my eyes to the ground these days, and I rarely find any change around. Even at the cash register at my local Second Cup, or my local grocery store, it’s hard to find any change lying around. I actually saw a woman walk down the street with a quarter in her hand, and then every time she passed a public phone, she would deposit the quarter and then hit the change return button, hoping to trick the machine in giving her more money. I think that might’ve worked in the old days, but not anymore with those new-fangled public phones. Seriously though, I’m not sure why we had so much trouble finding any loose change on the ground, but it’s been fun to see how much we could find. I’ll probably keep up the search, just to see if I can crack a certain amount by the end of the year. Shall I set a goal for that one? Might be fun.

Well, Melanie read my post about giving some of my found change to the homeless dude in my last post, and she’s graciously going to allow me to count it towards my total. Very nice. Thanks Melanie!

No, I didn’t win the lottery or anything, relax. But I did find one of each type of coin we have on the ground on Saturday night. That’s right, a quarter, dime, nickel and penny. Okay, not one of EACH type, as there was no loonie or toonie, but I don’t really count those as coins, considering they’re worth more than a dollar. But still, I was quite excited.

I will only be counting the quarter towards my total though, because as karma would have it, I found the change directly in front of a homeless dude who was sitting there with his hat out, so I dumped all but the quarter in. I know, I could’ve just kept on walking, but I felt karma dictated I give him something. I don’t normally give change to those who beg for it, as I know there are tons of service available to them to help them out of their predicament, but oh well. Sometimes karma wins out.

I felt the blog’s title was appropriate given that I was walking back from the theatre where I’d seen Ocean’s Thirteen. All in all a pretty good flick. I laughed quite a bit, and enjoyed the silliness of the boys. If you’re up for some silliness, I’d recommend it, and you don’t even need to have seen the previous two, although it helps. You’ll get more of the jokes if you have.

The Change Challenge page has been updated. Go take a look and see just how close we are to the $1 plateau.