2 years worth of change accumulated in my bedroom, covering most of my dresser top and all three shelves above my desk. This is apparently what happens when Nina goes off to grad school. I'm way beyond not making my bed... I like to take it to the next level.

Some statistics: 530 quarters, 482 pennies, 286 dimes, 114 nickels, 5 Anthony dollars, and approximately 50 foreign coins ranging from Kazakhstan to Bulgaria to Belize. The over-abundance of quarters is a result of the fact that I tend to leave everything else in the penny tray (when one is available). The wealth of foreign coins is due largely to my copious foreign travel, but also to the fact that, as a coin collector, I always ask people who have just been out of the country if they have any foreign coinage left from their trip. Usually, this happens while I'm at work and if they give me some I just put it in my pocket along with my regular change.

I don't recall ever receiving Susan B. Anthony dollars as change in the last two years, so I suspect that I was occasionally given them, by mistake, as quarters. This is, of course, why the Anthony dollar was such a failure as a coin. However, I like the following alternative hypothesis: your couch cushions actually have a non-zero interest rate. In my case, an initial investment of $171.62 for a term of 2 years yielded a net gain of $5, or 2.9%. It's not a particularly good rate, and the return is paid out in obsolete coinage that half the retail clerks in America won't recognize... but it's free money. The best part about the couch bank is that your friends occasionally make charitable contributions without even knowing it.

Somehow, my investment strategies seem to be about as useful as that whole Life Pencil idea I had. Maybe I should stick to nuclear safeguards.