Recent stock purchase

With the price of gas so high, and the oil companies having record profits, I decided my latest deposit into my brokerage account should be invested in the oil business. Narrowing the field down to Exxon and Chevron, I chose Chevron. Aside from the financials, Chevron is the gas I use to fill my car, and I feel comfortable investing in the stuff I purchase.

Accumulating change

For the longest time, I stayed away from my debit or credit cards, prefering to use cash for my purchases. During this time, I was able to accumulate quite a bit of loose change over a short period of time. All the change from every dollar I spent would end up in my change jar, and eventually in my brokerage account.

Nowadays, I find that I end up using my plastic more than cash, which means that accumulating enough change to make a meaningful stock purchase takes quite a bit longer. My last deposit of about $74 took between 6 and 9 months, so long I can't exactly remember how long it took. When using cash in the same period of time would yield a deposit of $150 or so, almost double!

The past couple days, I've been eating out for lunch, yeilding 50¢ for my savings. As of today, there's probably about $3 in change, not much but it's a start.

Getting Started

The speed at which "loose change" can accumulate sparked my intrigue one summer long ago. As a 13 year old, I spent a month during summer vacation with my grandparents. Every night, we played quarter blackjack (with a $5 limit), and over that month I ended up with about $180 in winnings, all in quarters.

During high school, a good friend I worked with was a waiter. He used to receive quite a pocketful of change every night which he would dump into a huge pickle jar. Each month he’d take the jar to his bank and run it through the coin machine, ending up with about $100 in cigarette money. That’s $1200 a year, in change!

In turn, I saved my pocket change, and it became a habit. Back then I was not interested in investing, but all those quarters, nickels, dimes, and pennies allowed me to make those indulgence purchases that would leave most people with a guilty conscience. Pocket change funded my clothes, electronics, and computer parts. I could buy them without feeling bad, because for one, I saved for those purchases and second, I just spent my pocket change… big deal!

Over that time, I learned that YES, pocket change is a big deal! Accumulated over all those years were hundreds, if not thousands of dollars in change. For the past few years, I still save my pocket change, but no longer am I buying electronics, I’m buying stocks. Constant savings and investing have not made me a millionaire (just yet), but it has provided me with a healthy hobby, and stock market returns that have not been too shabby.

So I ask you dear reader, what do you do with your pocket change?