First Costco parking lot find!

Our Costco in Woodinville, Washington probably has one of the cleanest parking lots around. We typically find several coins inside the store by the hot dog stand/vending machine area, but this time I finally scooped up the first coin outside the box store. Claire said that it's impossible to find money in the lot. I'm thinking with all of the traffic that comes and goes-we are bound to pick up something. Today turned out to be the day that I scored. I was even telling myself, "I'm going to find something before I get in the door," and bam....there it was, albeit - a penny...but a coin indeed!

My truck needed a good washing today, so I hit one of the car wash stations. When I finished washing the truck, I pulled into the first vaccum that was available and a quarter was waiting for me. There also must have been a pocket spill of pennies because I ended up with 12 of them.

Daily total: $.38

Grand total to date: $33.39

New car wash stop brings in $.27

Another job site took me to a different car wash. It's always great to run into a new place for coin hunting-especially when it produces the mighty round object(s). Most stops produce some kind of find-and this one brought in two dimes and seven pennies.

Daily total find: $.27
Grand total to date: $30.54
120 finding days averages out to $.25 per day

High fives for The Lincoln Penny Project!

Back to back Wheat Backs! Check out the Fred Meyer coin return find....

It was an early day out the door for Erich's soccer game. This one brought us all of the way out to Fall City for a 10:00am game. On the way to the game-we stopped for some Peet's Coffee and Whole Foods for some treats. While Claire was waiting for my hot chocolate and her caramel latte, I hit the Brown Bear Car Wash to hunt. I spotted a rare nickel and 8 pennies. One of the Lincoln's was a wheat backed penny (another rare find). Since our first money finding quest began on July 12, 2009, we have found only 15 nickels and 3 wheat back pennies-hence the rare nickel find.

Here we are outside of Peet's Coffee displaying our first find at Brown Bear Car Wash. Claire snapped a picture of me on the hunt.

It was off to shopping at Fred Meyer and Costco. As we were checking out of the grocery lane, I picked up our change in the change return and placed it in my pocket. There seemed to be more than a handful of change for some reason? When we got home, I emptied my pockets and counted the change. We received $1.71 more than our $.37 that was due to us. Two big pennies were spotted at Costco as well.

Daily total find: $1.86

Grand total to date: $25.52

105 finding days averages out to $.24

This could equate to $87.60 in one year

Abracadabra! Now you see it, now you don't.....

Are we the only people that find lost coins or actually look for them? Everywhere we go coins surface around us for some reason. We don't go too far out of our way to look either...it's amazing. It might be 5-10 minutes a day, or an extra 100 steps from the parking lot to the car and back from a visit to the store or an errand. Maybe it's just that we are more aware.

Because I am out on the road going to job sites, I'll hit a couple of unplanned stops to see if I run into any stray coins. Car washes are one of my favorite places for hunting. Today I found $1.40 at one car wash. As I drove into the station, two cars were leaving and two people were washing their vehicles. Before I vacuumed my truck out, I found 4 quarters. They were jammed in the coin return. The other coins were on the concrete and around the garbage bins. We are still amazed that people are missing out.

Notice in the photo someone washing their truck. The vacuum station had one dime and a child's ring along with the 4 quarters that were jammed in the coin return. I left the child's ring on the concrete platform.

Total daily find: $1.40

Total finds to date: 23.66

103 finding days averages out to $.23 per day

This could equate to $83.95 in one year.

First wheat back find since this quest began!

Wow! Finally the first wheat back penny uncovered. It's not like we took a metal detector over some land, dug down several inches and pulled up a treasure. This Lincoln Wheat Back Penny was sitting out in the open for all to see. It's a 1954S that's in decent shape for being 50+ years old. It was found at one of my favorite car wash stations. I needed to vacuum my truck out and noticed the Lincoln's Wheat Back staring up at me near my left front tire.

Before I used the vacuum, I toured the station-doing my rounds for the find. This one stop produced $.53 (2 quarters and 3 pennies). This sum was the same as yesterday. An earlier stop at Wal Mart brought in 6 pennies. The early morning find's total is $.59. Not bad!

Back to the car wash station. One vacuum area had a set of keys on the pavement. I snapped a picture of it and held on to the keys. The attendant was just pulling up while I was vacuuming. When I finished the job, I brought the keys up to him-letting him know what I found. He thanked me and asked if I wanted a free car wash. I thanked him and said I need to get to a job site. What an awesome day!

Update for the rest of the day. We ended up finding an additional $.36. The find came up with a Canadian quarter, one dime and a penny.

Total daily find: $.95

Grand total to date: $22.23

101 finding days averages out to $.22 per day.

Look what Max found!

The first find of the day was when I was passing out flyers around a job site we were working on. I found Mr. Roosevelt face up as I was making the rounds.

Max and I stopped by the our favorite car wash on the way home after our post office visit. Max couldn't believe what he saw in the garbage; a shiny Washington Quarter. He also found 3 pennies right by the vacuum section. The last find was another quarter-which I spotted on the ground near one of the car wash stalls.

Daily find: $.63

Total to date: $17.86

87 finding days averages out to $.20 per day

Car wash and Coinstar nets us $.07

Quiet day for finds-didn't hunt much though. I made two quick stops and came up with 7 pennies at the car wash/convenience store and a Coinstar at QFC.

Happy Hunting!