Save your change? (pennies nickels)

IF or once # hits the fan what will the ink and paper that make our money really be worth? (maybe paper is good for fires still?) would it be a good idea to save pennies and nickels?

just think would you rather have 100 pounds of nickel, or 100 pounds of paper with ink and security features? in situations like... if aliens land? to use if the planet is at war? or there is a bomb(s) and nothing is left but your loin cloth and your sack of pennies or nickel? can you melt paper to make a weapon?

maybe you need paper to start the fire to melt the nickel, but when i look around i see more things that burn and i can start a fire with than i see nickel so...

would it be stupid to start saving and boxing and putting away in storage nickels and pennies?

everyone seems to be in a hoot about american money being just paper debt, well should saving your change be a priority?

what do the ATSers who read this think? (yes you, who has all those precious metals in a piggy bank waiting to be turned into paper )

[edit on 31-3-2008 by OSSkyWatcher]

Sounds silly to me, hoarding coins. Better to spend them while they are still good. Otherwise, it could be decades after a new money adoption, and your old money is still old money. Maybe a scrap metal company would take them, but that is a lot of coins to possibly equal out to any new money units you could get back. A pound of copper could be worth a few pennies in new currency. You would need tons of pennies to have anything valuable. Hoard gold instead - I have hardly noticed gold lose value, except during the California Gold Rush times.

Paper money is not really paper, last I read. It's made of rags, like cotton and linen. It burns like paper, but you might get somewhere sewing your new clothes out of the bills instead of burning them and wearing winecask trousers. Wallpaper comes to mind as well. I heard a story that when the Confederate States of America money was out of value, people lined their outhouses with it.

I don't think the bill will fall to nothing. I think there will be a value drop, and then a $100 bill will buy a buck's worth of stuff in the future. And when are they going to start making coins with rfid chips in them? That would be neat.

I always save my change. When I get home each day I throw all my change in a jar. As it turns out I get a bonus every 90 days where I work. At the time I get the bonus from work I cash in my change jar and it's usually a little over 100 dollars.

a hundred bucks added to my bonus can put me over the top on what I might be really wanting at the time.

I'm not sure it's good as a survival strategy, coins are heavy and can be a real drag if you have to carry them around.

Still, save your change. In 90 days you will find yourself with a nice little windfall.