Change Pot Tuesday

Change Pot Tuesday is a weekly recap of finding money that other people have lost. However, it is more than just picking up pennies and collecting lost change. For those readers and followers who have begun following the Change Pot midway, Change Pot Tuesday is about charity. When the Change Pot reaches $100, it will be donated to charity and the process will be started all over again. Loyal readers and followers will have an opportunity to help me choose which charity will receive the money accumulated in the Change Pot. While, I don't expect to change the world with the Change Pot, I do hope to help a charity in some small way.

The Change Pot had its best week ever thanks to Lori finding $15 on Monday evening. That find alone was twice the amount we had found all year, tripling the current total in the Change Pot. Here is this week's breakdwon:

Thursday - $0.03. Because we were going to be traveling on Friday to Pittsburgh, we made Thursday evening our weekly "pizza" night and decided to try out Jerry's Pizza and Subs near our apartment. (For what it is worth, the pizza wasn't that great - limp crust and extremely greasy.) We found three pennies at Jerry's. The first two were in the parking lot as we got out of the car. The third was on the counter inside one of those paper tri-fold/triangular signs advertising some menu item.

Monday - $15.00. Yes, that's right! Lori found $15 on Monday in the most unlikely of places - and old birthday card from her mom and dad. Lori was unpacking from our move and came across the birthday card when she found the money inside. While this may not seem like a true find because it was Lori's money to begin with, the card was about 15 years old! This means the $15 Lori found was truly lost and therefore qualifies. No, I will not make Lori donate her birthday money to the cause, but I will add $15 to the change pot for the find.

Tuesday - $0.01. I don't exactly remember where we found this penny, but it was most likely one of three places we went Tuesday evening. We stopped at Verizon to get new cell phones and I think this is where I found the penny. However, since I am not sure, it could also have been at IKEA or the Burger King near the White Marsh (Baltimore suburb) Town Center (a shopping mall).

Weekly Total: $15.04
YTD Total: $22.54

Casualties of Moving

As most of you know, we recently moved to Towson, a Baltimore area suburb. We did our best to pack everything as carefully as we could to make sure that nothing broke in transit. As we begin unpacking our many boxes, we have come across our first casualty of the move -- our computer!

It is really a stretch to call it a casualty of the move. When I disassembled the computer to move it, it already had a blank black screen. We did not pack it because it was moved in our car as a precaution, something we had planned to do anyway. When the computer arrived in Baltimore, we set it up and quickly realized our worst fears - the computer had indeed crashed. When booting the computer, I continually get a blue screen error message stating that Windows has shut itself down to prevent further damage to the computer.

I can't really blame anything for the computer crash. The computer is five years old (ancient and antique in the computer world). We needed to replace it anyway. I have taken the computer to the Geek Squad at Best Buy (didn't know where else to take it having just moved) and they are going to try to retrieve the data from the computer. While it went against my better judgment because of cost, I asked them to repair it as well, assuming it is repairable. This really is more to buy us a little more time until the sell of our house closes and we can get a new computer. Luckily for us we have a laptop that I bought last year for school. Unfortunately, the data on the desktop that may not be recoverable is our checkbook (in Quicken) and several songs from iTunes that had not yet been synced with our iPod.

Hopefully both will be recoverable and we won't lose any money we paid for the any of the iTunes songs. I can reinstall the Quicken and recover the data from my backup (yes, I have a backup of our checkbook), if I could just figure out what box they are packed it. It is maddening trying to go from day-to-day without knowing exactly how much money you have to spend -- and because of the move having to spend money like crazy to get things done. We can always check on the balance online, except that we don't have internet service yet! We are having to use the free Wi-Fi at Dunkin Doughnuts, which isn't exactly free considering you feel obligated to buy something while you are there. Besides, their internet access is not secure and even if it was, the online balance may not be correct because it doesn't show checks that have been presented until after they post. Good news is that we are getting internet, phone and TV installed on Thursday. Hopefully as we get these little things accomplished, we will begin to feel settled.

Change Pot Tuesday

Change Pot Tuesday is a weekly recap of finding money that other people have lost. However, it is more than just picking up pennies and collecting lost change. For those readers and followers who have begun following the Change Pot midway, Change Pot Tuesday is about charity. When the Change Pot reaches $100, it will be donated to charity and the process will be started all over again. Loyal readers and followers will have an opportunity to help me choose which charity will receive the money accumulated in the Change Pot. While, I don't expect to change the world with the Change Pot, I do hope to help a charity in some small way.

The Change Pot had a much better week this week, but the finds were still limited to only one day - Sunday. On Sunday, we found $0.27 total in the form of a quarter and two pennies. The first penny was found at the Sheetz in Breezewood, PA on the way home from Pittsburgh. The quarter and second penny were found at separate times (coming and going) in the parking lot of our new apartment after returning from Pittsburgh.

Weekly Total: $0.27
YTD Total: $7.47

Change Pot Tuesday

Change Pot Tuesday is a weekly recap of finding money that other people have lost. However, it is more than just picking up pennies and collecting lost change. For those readers and followers who have begun following the Change Pot midway, Change Pot Tuesday is about charity. When the Change Pot reaches $100, it will be donated to charity and the process will be started all over again. Loyal readers and followers will have an opportunity to help me choose which charity will receive the money accumulated in the Change Pot. While, I don't expect to change the world with the Change Pot, I do hope to help a charity in some small way.

This week was a very poor week for the Change Pot with only a single penny found on Wednesday. The penny was left on a table in the quiet/study area of the UMBC administration building. I suspect the lack of finds this week has more to do with us concentrating on the move and not on looking for lost change.

Weekly Total: $0.01
YTD Total: $7.20