On the previous pages, I collected lost money to fund an experiment in luck - this can't be described as a massive success - I continued until near the end of 2009 - buying a further six or seven lottery tickets, however the results of playing the lottery are approximately the same as for not playing. There's got to be a better use for all these pennies I keep finding...

Project Ebenezer

Project Horseshoe is over - here comes Project Ebenezer.

Starting on 01 December 2009, I carried on collecting every dropped coin I saw, but this time, I'm saving them up in a jar.

I'm planning to keep this up for a whole year - so at the start of December 2010 - hoping to have accumulated enough found money to be able to do something useful...

...I'm hoping to fund all of next year's Christmas dinner with money I picked up for free.

I'll post the running total here at the end of each month.

December 2009

At the end of the first month, I've managed to find £2.53 in loose change (that's it in the jar above) - a fantastic start!

January 2010

I found £2.38 in January - bringing the total to £4.91.

The fund so far is composed of an assortment of denominations from 1p to 50p - a total of 113 coins - that's an average of about two coins found per day.

February 2010

A phenomenal month's find!

£5.06 in February - more than December and January combined - the total is now £9.97.

In the three months so far, there has not been a single working day where I have returned home without having found at least a penny.

March 2010

I thought that February was exceptional, but March was better still - the fund now totals £16.73 - having increased by £6.76 this month, still finding some money on every single working day (and a couple of occasions on the weekend too)

The denominations of the coins I find seems measurably affected by location, time of day and even the weather - I'll say more on this later, maybe.

April 2010

Wheeeee! look at this! I found a ten pound note this month - just lying there on the flagstones, with everyone walking past it, oblivious.

So along with the usual assortment of coins that makes a total of £15.78 this month, bringing the total to a whopping £32.51.

12 May 2010

I suspected this day would come - after five and a half months during which I found money every working day (and quite a few weekends), I returned home empty-handed for the first time.

I think pickings are thinning out a bit in general - maybe the lighter mornings and evenings are making dropped coins easier for other people to spot, or maybe people aren't having to fumble under heavy coats to put money in their pockets.

May 2010

Another smashing month - I found a five pound note screwed up in a ball with some litter.

And as ever, I found a good assorment of loose change - except on only one day (12 May - see aboe). This month's finds totalled £12.03, so the fund now stands at £44.54.

Projection At Project Midpoint

Finds of paper money are pretty exceptional, so I think the average is probably running a bit high at the moment - it seems most likely that the end total will be a figure that falls somewhere between minimum and average - so between £60 and about £85. Would be nice if it went as high as £100.

June 2010

I continued to find money every working day and most weekends this month - including a wet, but perfectly good five pound note in a roadside gutter after rain..

I picked up a total of £13.72 found this month, boosting the fund up to £58.26.

More Stats

Now, this gets quite interesting - plotting the number of coins/notes (y axis) found against their denomination (x axis), we get a graph that looks like this:

Almost a classic exponential curve - or at least, it would be, but for that rather patterned zig-zaggy look. Let's take a closer look at that...

I think what's happening here is that the curve is interrupted by dips at 50p, 10p and 2p (it also dips to zero at £2). Why?

Well, these four denominations are larger diameter coins than their neighbours in the graph. Bigger coins are easier to spot on the ground, don't pass so easily through holes in pockets, and make more noise when they hit the ground - all of this (I hypothesise) contributes to a generally lower find rate for these denominations.

Plotting total yield (y axis) per denomination (x axis) was also interesting:

Obviously this is just the same data, but a different way to look at it - and again, taking into consideration the dips in the graph - caused (I believe) by factors described above - we get a more or less steadily descending line - that is: although pennies are much more common than pound coins, they're not so common as to be collectively more valuable.

One more anomaly in this graph is the spike for 20p coins. I believe that is also explainable - in my experience, they're the least conspicuous coin - they have an intricate design, combined with a brushed matt finish that renders them less shiny or contrasty when they're lying on the ground - to the untrained eye (not mine), they're not very visible - so they tend to stay lost until I find them.

The Raw Numbers

In case you're interested, here is the breakdown of finds.

A total of 838 items - not including the buttons (see side column)

July 2010

Again, I found money every working day and some weekends - another tenner this month - making it the most productive month yet.

£17.67 found this month. The total fund now stands at £75.93.

To save the bother of recounting the whole jar each month, I added a plastic bag to cache the monthly find.

August 2010

Oh dear. Not a very productive month. I only found £1.91 this month, raising the fund to £77.84.

This is due in significant part to my being away on holiday for two weeks - I only found 12 pence in the whole fortnight.

Updated Projection