House Invaded by Mysterious Ant Hills of Money? You’re not Alone!
If there’s one thing about the opposite sex I will never understand it’s their aversion to coins. Of course I am going general by making such a bold claim. Because maybe your husband/partner/dad/brother/son delights in the rattle of coins in their pocket? After all, weren’t most of us brought up on the old adage ‘look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves‘, and that glorious old chestnut ‘money doesn’t grow on trees‘?
Which as a positive thinker, actually couldn’t be further from the truth, because it so does!
More than likely though, you are a penny hooverer-upper like me. Us women constantly collect discarded piles of coppers from bedside tables to the backs of sofas and everywhere in-between because, well, hello, it’s all money!
Yes, it seems men are allergic to coins, whereas women can see these strange circular pieces of metal for what they really are: Cold hard cash. And contrary to my husband’s belief, paying for goods in a shop with a stash of small coins is actually bloody good fun because…
– I can get the teenage petrol station attendant all in a dither when I fill up (no, not just because I am in a short skirt and heels).
– I can help those in the queue behind me at the supermarket to relax, live in the moment and exercise patience as I painstakingly count out my coins to pay for my weekly shop.
– And I can help the bar tender open his mind when he initially refuses my attempt to settle up the bill for a round of Pinot Grigio with one and two pence pieces. It’s legal tender! Not my problem that he’ll have to somehow make room for them in the till.
I know. I know. If you’re on the receiving end of my shenanigans you might beg to differ. But tell me: what else am I to do with this crazy surplus of bronze in my house? I’m definitely not barmy enough to save all my coins in one of those giant whisky bottles only to pull several muscles heaving it to a bank in several wheelbarrows to be changed up into piles of those more acceptable things we call notes!
And it seems the more baffled I get by my husband’s apparent lack of gratitude for his small change, the more of it I get to play with. Yes, by turning penny spending into a game, we women are not only strengthening the power of our own gratitude – and as we all know, like attracts like, being thankful for what we have means we will receive more – just preferably in slightly larger denominations. Hmm, piles of notes on the kitchen worktop. Now that would be nice… We are also having fun with our money. And bingo! When we enjoy spending, when we make it fun, we start to re-train our previously penny-pinching thoughts. We don’t cringe quite as much when we have to pay the electricity, the mechanic’s bill or the rent. And if we want to, we can pay all three in pennies. Such fun!
When we are easy with our money, non-plussed as to the non-verbal signs we are giving about our ‘social status’ since we’re paying for a coffee and croissant in a cafe in the London borough of Chelsea with a see-through bag of five pence pieces, we’re on to a good thing. And we are also encouraging those around us to change their limiting beliefs that the world will be in utter meltdown if we pay the bus driver our fare in twenty pence pieces. How crazy is it that I have even included the plump and glorious twenty pence piece in this blog? Because that’s how silly this has all become. At least in my house.
But soon we will have everyone offloading their not-so-small stashes of cash and starting a money revolution! Ease is abundance. Don’t believe me? Try it and watch the tendrils on your money tree start to grow…
So men in all your shapes, guises and sizes, lighten up if you want to lighten your loose change load. Save up your pennies, buy yourselves purses and bin the anti-penny wallets. But no bum bags or fanny pouches. No. There’s no need to take it quite that far.
Fear not the potentially embarrassing social situations of the humble coin. Start a Mexican wave of change!
