A Penny for Your Walks: Finding Small Abundance in Everyday Life
A Penny for Your Walks: Finding Small Abundance in Everyday Life
By: a.d. elliott | Take the Back Roads - Art and Other Odd Adventures
Dear Henry,
Do you have any off-the-wall superstitions?
One of mine is an absolute inability to walk past coins lying on the ground. Even if the coin is only a penny. I am convinced that leaving money where it lies is, on some cosmic level, an affront to the mysterious forces that scatter opportunities for abundance along our paths. To ignore them feels rude. Or careless. Or possibly unlucky.
My children, of course, think this is ridiculous. I suspect this superstition may one day be raised in a committee hearing. Still, I persist.
Since moving to Tulsa, the habit has turned into something of a side hustle.
The apartment life, combined with a large dog who requires frequent walks, means I now spend far more time wandering sidewalks than I ever did in rural Northwest Arkansas. City streets, it turns out, are far more generous than forest paths. I pick up coins almost daily. Pennies mostly, but occasionally nickels, dimes, and the rare, thrilling quarter.
Fish and I now treat my daily haul as a running joke. On average, I earn about five cents a day. Hardly glamorous, but consistent.
Some days are better than others. There’s been the occasional dollar bill, folded small and waiting patiently near a curb. And over the course of a few months, the coins accumulated into something unexpectedly meaningful: enough to buy the turkey for our donated Thanksgiving basket.
It felt like exactly the right use for found money.
No, I don’t expect to get rich this way. But it’s been oddly satisfying to watch small, easily dismissed moments turn into something tangible. A reminder that little things do add up. Those small changes, literal and otherwise, can be gathered, counted, and turned outward.
As a bonus, the habit has transformed walking the dog from a chore into a quiet scavenger hunt. Every walk carries the possibility of discovery. Not riches, necessarily, but proof that paying attention matters.
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About the Author
a.d. elliott is a wanderer, photographer, and storyteller traveling through life
She shares her journeys at Take the Back Roads, explores new reads at Rite of Fancy, and highlights U.S. military biographies at Everyday Patriot.
You can also browse her online photography gallery at shop.takethebackroads.com.
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