I just had a post about the 101 Dumbest Moments in Business that had one of the 101 about how much it cost to make a penny. I saw an article today on Yahoo called Coin Shortgage Could Turn Pennies to Nickels. The 101 Dumbest Moments in Business had every penny costing around 1.75 cents to make. This article on Yahoo says a penny costs over 2 cents to make.
The article goes on to say that there is a copper shortage going on, and it will continue. The penny could cost close to 5 cents to make in the coming months. They suggested that the US Treasury just change the penny into a nickel (make it worth 5 cents) so that people don’t feel the need to melt down the pennies and sell them that way. I think I will just start keeping pennies in a piggy bank for the next few years or so. If they do change the pennies into nickels, I just got a 500% return on my money. I will have to have a ton of pennies for this to pay off, but how often can you get a 500% return on your money from just saving a penny or two every so often.