My Quarter Pig

I have been lucky in many ways, especially financially. I'm no Richy Rich, but I was lucky to have parents who made it their mission to pay for their kids' college education without taking out loans, which meant we all left school without debts to have to pay back. I also was not instilled with a belief of needing a new car, so after my car was stolen shortly upon moving to DC 10 years ago, I figured it was a sign that a car (and its accompanying monthly payment) were just not for me.

I had my credit card troubles just like too many college students unfortunately, thought I happened to marry a woman who beat the piss out of me regularly for not paying them off and now it's a regular habit for me to no balance on those cards. Sure, it means I missed out on fun guy trips or a few extra drinks on a weekend night, but alas I have to think it's made me a better person Somehow.

Four-and-a-half years ago I started working at CFED, a place where saving money and building assets is our organizational DNA. When one of our most successful pilot programs, the SEED initiative, came to a conclusion I snagged one of the small plastic piggy banks that were given to the kids as encouragement tools to save. It was small enough that I was curious how much change could fit in the thing. Being a little more ambitious, I upped the ante by only filling it with quarters because pennies are nice and all but I wanted to play in the big leagues.

Thus Quarter Pig was born. It's not as fun as Spiderpig, but in honor of Homer the wife and I used that goofy song as motivation to fill the pig up as fast as we could.


After about 2-3 months we had it filled. I think we could have filled it faster had we been more aggressive but it wasn't in the cards because there were parking meters that needed filling now and then. It's not a big pig, I know, but you'd be surprised how much could fit in that thing. A buck here, a buck there, it's small but seemed like a bottomless pit that would never be filled. Kinda like Nikki Sixx's cocaine habit. Once it was full, we had the joy of emptying it out to count how much money was actually jammed in there.

I dumped the quarters on the table and figured in stacks of $1 a piece it wouldn't take up much room. I hit a row of 10, then another, and then another again. We had to move the mail. We had to move the centerpiece. By the time we had the rows all lined up, they nearly fell off the table.


Counted up, it came to a surprising total of $133.50. I never imagined that small plastic pig could hold that much money. It's not a fortune by any stretch but it's certainly a solid bit of money that could make a nice difference especially since it's saved and not thought about as spending money. We've emptied the pig and started anew. Looking forward to seeing how quickly we can stuff his green little belly with more quarters. He needs feeding.