Britain’s streets are paved with £186 million

The average person pockets £4 a year from picking up pennies from the street according to research by leading independent personal finance website Fool.co.uk. That may not sound like much but, across Britain, this equates to a potential £186 million a year.

As many as six out of ten (60%) Brits will pick up a lone penny. That said, one in ten people (9%) say their effort has to be worth at least 10p, and one in 15 (7%) simply won’t go out of their way for anything less than £1.

Men have (almost) all the luck

Men on average pick up more lost pennies than women. The man on the street scoops up £3.88 a year off the streets, but women only manage £3.35. However, women are less likely to keep their haul. One in three (35%) will donate any notes they find to charity or hand them in to the police.

The unscrupulous youth

Young people have fewer scruples about keeping what they find. Eight out of ten (81%) 18- to 25-year-olds say they will keep any paper money they find. In contrast, only one in two (55%) people over 58 years of age will keep it. But the over fifties are more likely to pick up coppers – four out of ten (41%) say they will do so.

The focused Londoner

Londoners have the clearest idea of what their effort is worth. Less than half (41%) will bother to stoop to pick up a lucky penny. However, seven out of ten (70%) of their contemporaries in Yorkshire and Humberside will embrace that extra little coin.

The decent Irish

One in 16 (6%) people in Northern Ireland won’t get their hands dirty for less than a pound, but prove to be most honest when finding notes. One in four (25%) will do their best to get £5 or more back to its rightful owner. But eight out of ten Londoners and residents in the North East (76% each) confess that they will keep what they find.

Sofa so good

The most common place to find cash is on the pavements, but one in 12 people (8%) will brave the fluff and dropped sweets down the back of sofas. One in ten people (9%) always make sure they check the change slot in vending machines and payphones. One in 100 people (1%) find that locations around parking meters are lucrative penny-picking areas.

David Kuo, Head of Personal Finance at Fool.co.uk, says: “It’s quite extraordinary that people chuck away £186 million a year through carelessness. But it seems that one man’s loss can be another man’s gain.

“Now, no one can prove whether finding a penny and picking it up will bring you good luck. But there are better ways of making £3.80 than combing the streets for a year.

“By cutting out a store-bought sandwich at lunch and replacing it with a home-made one, you could easily pocket an extra £3.80 every day. And the money would grow to £1,429 in one year if deposited in a high-interest savings account paying 6%.”