How Dozens of Strangers Paid Our Bar Tab

What if I told you Matt and I recently sat at a bar, ordered a round of drinks and a quick bite. The only promotion was that we were there during happy hour. We paid for our beer, our burger, tax, AND tip without spending a dime of our own money. No, there were no coupons or gift card. No, we didn’t find a hair in our food and have the bill comped and HELL no we didn’t dine and ditch!

Would you believe me?

So how did we manage to have a happy hour date night without dipping into our own wallets?

Find a Penny Pick it Up

If you’re anything like me, you can’t even begin to count the number of times you have walked right past a discarded penny without thinking twice. After all, it’s just a penny. That’s hardly worth stopping for and taking the time to bend down and pick up. Right? Maybe, but what if you did stop and pick it up every time? Purely out of curiosity rather than destitution, we decided to collect any loose change we crossed paths with.

Over the course of a year we collected pennies, nickels, dimes, and the occasional coveted quarter. I freely leave quarters in my Aldi cart for unsuspecting shoppers, but finding a quarter at random on the street during this project was cause for celebration. Instead of hitting up the nearest gumball machine, each coin that was collected was deposited into a mason jar dedicated just for these finds. Some were shiny and brand new, but many were covered in the grime you might expect of an orphaned coin, stranded in a sidewalk crack for days or even weeks at a time. Yet still, into the jar they went – gunk and all.

Feeling Like A Hobo

Sometimes this project lent itself to a small bit of embarrassment. Circling an area for far longer than normal before bending down and collecting a few cents came with a lingering sense of shame. And those times in line at the convenience store where I’d inconspicuously step on a nearby penny then scoot it out the door with me. Not some of my proudest moments. Let’s not even get started on those sticky pennies someone left at the Coinstar machine. One person’s trash really is another person’s treasure. It’s in the name of research I told myself!

The Final Tally

When we accrued enough coins to mostly fill our jar, we decided it was time to count our loot and see what we could afford. Feeling like a child with her first piggy bank, I eagerly emptied the coins from their jar and began to stack ’em and count ’em.

We ended up with a total of $16.97. If this was our annual salary, we’d be in big trouble. However, for collecting pennies on the street, only as we crossed paths with them, not too shabby!

What We Purchased

Just under $17 isn’t going to get you very far in the realm of fine dining. Instead, we hit up a locals bar known for their nightly specials and good deals during happy hour. Matt was able to order two Bud Lights, one mixed rum drink for me, and a burger to share. We toasted our first round to all of the strangers who dropped a nickel in the parking lot fumbling for their keys. To the ones who chose not to claim those sticky pennies as their own. To the ones who saw the dime fall from their wallet but were in too big of a hurry or just didn’t care to pick it up. Thanks for funding our date night! Over an hour later of sitting at the bar enjoying each other’s company, we closed our tab just under budget. Our total came to $11.92. We left our bartender a $5 tip bringing our final amount to $16.92.

We’ll never get rich collecting coins from the street, but it was a fun experiment to see how many are really out there just waiting to be found. Next time you see a penny, I hope you’ll bend over and pick it up too!

Cheers friends,

Megan & Matt