Find, Earn, and Collect Change to Grow Your Wealth

Change.

What is change to us?

Most people don't think much of it. Ten cents here, a nickel there, a few pennies down the drain, who cares? Right?

Well, what if I told you, that if you were just a tad more mindful of your change, you could actually get rich off it? Would you want to start paying more attention? Good. Because change CAN make you rich (eventually...) if you get enough of it and/or invest it correctly.

So how do you get change?

You find it, you earn it, and you collect it.

You make it happen!

Finding change is as easy or as hard as you make it. To find change, you simply need to be aware of your world.

Change can easily be found:

• On the ground (especially by Fast Food drive-thru windows...)
• In and under couches, chairs, beds, and other furniture
• In the change slots and/or around and under vending machines
• In pockets of loved ones' laundry
• In checkout lanes
• At the carwash
• At concerts and sporting events
• Under arcade machines
• Etc.

Once found, the change must be saved, protected, or invested!

This may seem like a strange concept to some, but part of growing wealth is not about money at all! It's about a wealth of health, a wealth of spirit, and a wealth of life! Fitness is a big part of all three of those things, so why not combine it with this fine art of finding change? Here are some suggestions of how to do just that:

Crabwalking Around Your House to Find Change:

I'm talking down on all fours, upside-down/backwards/however you want to look at it crabwalking. I did it in elementary school a lot - we would even play a soccer type game while crabwalking around. I loved it!

Anyway, the reason why this is such a good method for getting around your house as you search for change in terms of fitness, is that this particular exercise works so many different muscles in the body, helps strengthen the core, gets the heart rate up, and is really fun! Yes, fun is important for fitness and good health too!

Going for Walks, Jogs, and/or Runs to Find Change:

Getting out in nature, walking, jogging, and/or running, and having time to think, listen to music, and/or talk with a friend all are valuable enough reasons to get out there and get active! When you add "finding change" to the formula, you not only help increase your wealth of health, spirit, and life... you actually help increase your actual wealth! I have included lots of places to find and collect change here in this hub, but get creative! You may find change in unlikely places on your adventures out and about...

Meditating to Find Change:

Alright, this may be stretching it a bit... but the power of the mind IS strong. So, perhaps if we meditate on finding change and visualize it for ourselves, it will happen.

So obviously, I'm not necessarily talking about the "clear your mind" kind of meditations, I'm talking about more focused meditations (though often, even my focused meditations turn into "clear your mind" kind of meditations...)

You focus on your breath and finding a steady rhythm with your body, then you focus on what you wish to improve, change, make happen, whatever. So in this case maybe it's something like:

"I will see the change wherever I go..."

That could be a repeatable mantra.

(Though, it may just cause you to see all forms of "change" wherever you go; redecorating, haircuts, societal changes... but hopefully still the money part too.

Earning change is pretty easy these days, with so many available offerings on the internet. But there are still ways to earn change here in the real world too.

Here are a few ways to earn change, both online and in the real world around you as well:

• Micro-jobs online or pay per word transcription, translation, web searching, etc.
• Affiliate Marketing - Amazon associates, Ad programs, promoting your favorite products and brands for money, you know... affiliate marketing. It's a pretty big thing on the internet these days, in case you didn't know... (If you're good, and you work hard, change turns to dollars by the way!)
• Revenue Sharing Writing Websites - like Hubpages and List My Five. Hubpages and List My Five (LM5) also happen to be my personal two favorite revenue sharing writing websites. Hubpages is fun, easy to use, has great features, and a lovely community of people. On Hubpages, you can actually earn through other means too, besides just revenue sharing based on ads, views, clicks, blah, blah, blah... including that good old affiliate marketing! List My Five is great because it is just making top five lists based on pretty much anything you can think of. If you're a listmaker, or can be, LM5 could be a great site for you. (Once again, if you're good and you work hard, change turns into dollars in these areas too!)
• Promotional Work or Sponsorship - Getting paid to tweet, post a link, etc;. getting paid to make a short video or for use of a photo on a website; getting paid (per word) to write a short, promotional, sponsored blog post; getting paid to be a certain place online at a certain time, etc. (And if you're good and you work hard... see a trend here?)
• Yard / Garage Sales, Craigslist, Ebay, Etsy, Flea Markets, Pawn Shops, Secondhand Stores, Consignment Shops, Friends and Family, etc. (Sell your stuff! You'll be amazed at how much you can really get rid of...)
• Run a lemonade stand or some other kind of cutesy stand for people you know. It's fun for everyone, especially if there aren't a lot of kids around to do such things and it is a good, inexpensive, easy, and like I said, FUN way to earn change.
• Rewards and Money Making Sites. On MyCokeRewards (a Rewards site) you can earn free cases of Coke with codes in boxes and on lids, so you can get free cans to turn in for the deposit if you're in a qualifying area. How sweet is that?
• Busking (Entertaining on the street! Fun and change! Woo hoo!)
• Face painting, original poems, jokes, magic tricks, caricatures, photographs, origami animals, pet rocks, etc. for tips. (Once again: fun and change! Woo hoo!)
• Writing books, ebooks, pamphlets, etc. (Starts as change, becomes more and more... until someday... who knows! Bestsellers, movie deals, "pamphlet of the year!" Okay... maybe I'm getting a little ahead of myself...)
• Waiting tables (Feels like just change a lot of times at least...)
• Doing chores for your parents (no matter your age) for change. (If you're an adult, and your parents will do this for you, count yourself lucky! Not all people have parents who will give them money - not even change. To be fair, sometimes it's probably deserved tough love, sometimes it is because they can't afford to do so, sometimes it's because they don't feel they need to because their kids REALLY don't need it; but sometimes, it is just parents not caring or being supportive, which is very sad to me. MY parents are supportive of me, and they will play along with things like this to help me (and maybe even just to humor me) and I appreciate it so much. Sometimes a few quarters added together equals gas money home - why not help my parents out to do that instead of just asking for money from them, right?
• Fiverr "Gigs" - $5 worth of "change!" Okay... maybe it doesn't quite count, but if you break it down into hourly pay, sometimes with bigger projects (or ones you just get overzealous on or over generous with) it literally becomes pennies per hour. SO... in my eyes, it counts.

Collecting change can be a hard thing. It is tempting to pay with exact change, tempting to get a gumball out of the machine... but we must persevere, and collect the change!

How?

First of all, have places to put your change at the end of every day. A cup, a dish, a piggy bank, whatever! Not scattered all over the house or stagnant in your purse, pockets, or wallet, but consciously collected and secured.

Secondly, try to avoid using exact change for awhile and instead save all the extra change you will get from transactions throughout the day.

Other ways to collect change:

• Begging (not recommended)
• Asking for donations
• Gathering cans and bottles and taking them in for the deposit (in qualifying areas)
• Getting money from people who owe you (Be your own collection agency!)
• Starting a wishing fountain and collecting the change tossed it daily
• Stockpiling pennies
• Making smart investments which will help you "collect" more than just change

• Stealing (Not okay and illegal- do NOT do it!)
• Gambling (Risky - not advised or promoted by me!)
• Getting big bills broken down into change and then saving the change in piggy banks (Easy)
• Stock trading (Complicated)
• Owning an arcade or a laundromat so as to never run out of change! (Expensive)
• Pretending to be a coin collector, but collecting for yourself any and all change presented to you, collectible or not (Shady)
• Fundraising (Somewhat Legit)

How can you save change?

Be more mindful of everyday things that drain pennies from you a little at a time but that can actually add up fast!

Some examples of things to do and pay attention to in order to save change:

• Pay bills on time to avoid tiny fees that add up.
• Make sure that your house is appropriately weather-proofed for the conditions where you live, or you may lose a lot of change in heating costs!
• Turn off lights when you leave rooms and try to exist off of natural light as much as possible to save those little bits that add up on your bill each month.
• Conserve water (and save that change!) by turning the faucet off between brush rinses when you brush your teeth, reusing old water for other purposes, washing your laundry on cold, using water saving settings on your dishwasher, not bathing every day, and using the philosophy with the toilet as much as possible: "If it's yellow, let it mellow; if it's brown, flush it down!" These things actually do help with conservation and with saving money.
• Unplug appliances and electronics when not in use or charging to save tiny amounts of money on your bills.
• Try to avoid impulse buys by thinking about the truly important things in life... you will save a lot by not having the latest $5 bin DVD, forgoing getting a pack of gum from every gas station you enter in the county, and getting a drink at home instead of buying individual bottles of pop out of vending machines because you don't have the willpower to wait, like 45 minutes, for example...
• Actually have a Savings account... Makes sense, right? It also makes you interest. In case you don't know much about interest on a savings account, it's basically little bits of money that get added to your account balance and eventually add up to more and more money as time goes on. So saving becomes earning with really no effort on the part of the saver, pretty much. But you have to trust a bank or credit union enough to open a savings account, so this option isn't for everyone.

• Save some change
• Invest some change
• Protect some change separately from the rest
• Involve some risk when it comes to making gains
• Grow your wealth

You heard me! Grow your wealth! Get out there and find, earn, and collect some change today!!! Then make it work for you and make you rich! You can do this!!!

While you are finding, earning, and collecting your change and growing your financial wealth, don't forget to grow your wealth of health, your wealth of spirit, and your wealth of life!

Take care of your body, mind, heart, and spirit.

Be grateful for all that you DO have as you strive to achieve the things that you don't.

Enjoy yourself and be present in your life. Have fun!

Don't forget that it isn't all about money. There are definitely more important types of "change" in this life...

If so, please feel free to leave me a comment. I am always interested to see what people think of my approach to finding, earning, and collecting change in order to grow wealth and of course what people think of my writing as well. So, as I said, feel free to leave a comment below and good luck with that change!