Ira Keys first started saving pennies while he was in high school in the 1950s. At 17 years old, his father told him that whatever he did, he should save his money. No one could have ever expected how seriously Ira Keys took that advice, and since the 1950s, he has been saving his pennies. That is more than 65 years of saving money.
Over the years, Ira placed his pennies in Folger’s coffee cans, and he had accumulated a fair amount of them. It was not until 2015 that Ira decided it was time to cash in all his loose change. Over time, the pennies had built up an impressive weight of around 500 pounds, and he put each coffee can in his car and carted them off to the bank. This mindset took all the bankers back a bit. Kari Lewis, a personal banker, said that most people take pennies for granted. While it is true that pennies back in the day were worth more, this story shows that you should not discredit them.
A lot of people on the street would see a penny and say that it is not even worth picking up. For Ira, however, every penny that he ever found made its way into his coffee cans. In fact, it is quite impressive to collect that amount of pennies. After taking his pennies to the bank, the bank tellers told him that he had more than 81,600 pennies. That equates to around $816 in total. That’s not too bad considering all of it was in pennies. Almost no one would snub their noses up at $816.
What does Keys plan to do with his new found wealth? Keys has said that he wants to build a room divider so that he can decorate it with the shiny pennies. That basically commemorates and honors the advice that his father had given him. In addition to his new room divider, however, Keys has said that he plans to build another new and improved piggy bank. In an interview, he told the news that this is just one of the habits that he has taken on. Habits are hard to break sometimes, he joked with the interviewer. Nevertheless, this is clearly not one of the negative habits to have.
When the news station asked him, he told them that he did not think that he would ever cash in that many pennies again. However, he does plan to cash them in again to see how much he can build up. When the bank teller used the machine to count and weigh the 81,000 pennies, it took over one hour to look over everything. This wonderful lesson goes to show that even small things can add up to big things and his dad gave him excellent advice that he followed through with and earned a nice sum of cash. Through time and patience Ira Keys built an impressive level of wealth, but it is somewhat hard to imagine saving every penny since you first started 65 years ago. That takes an admirable level of discipline that most people do not have.