Foraging for metals of all kinds - aluminum, steel, brass, copper (even copper wires) and old coins, can help you add an easy extra income to your savings jar. You get to spend time outside, get some free fitness, and do your community a service by cleaning up your local area.

Here is a case study of a month of collecting and selling scrap metal in my leisure time:

- 100 lbs steel - Called Tin and White Goods - $7.70 (all kinds of neat stuff - horseshoes, a vintage metal tennis racket, old garden implements, random steel bricks, rebar, wire hangers, nails/screws/washers, steel cans, car parts, pulleys)
- 16 lbs Aluminum Cans - $8.80
- 2 lbs Painted Aluminum - .95 (this was a washing machine door i found on the side of the highway)
- 4 lbs Aluminum Breakage - .75 (aluminum window screen panes)
- 1 lbs Insulated Copper - $1.02 (this was old cords/wiring found on the side of the road)
- 5 lbs Yellow Brass - $7.98 (fittings found in an old lot, under the duff under some bushes)
- 4 lbs Tin and White Goods - .31 (small random steel objects i didn’t unload from the first weighing - this was mainly bottle caps I’ve been picking up along the roads)

So my total was $27.51 in cash that I received from Yavapai Metal Recycling in Dewey, AZ. I had another coupon for an additional 10%, so the total would have been less without that coupon (which came in the mail).

I have a birthday coming soon and I asked DH for a metal detector. Let’s see if I get one! I would love that. Not only could it help me collect small metals (and hopefully more brass and copper), I might find gold and silver jewelry, or old coins.

Along these lines - when you constantly scan the ground for metal, you also find a lot of coins. Not just pennies! Yesterday I found a quarter and a penny, and another day I found several dollars worth of nickels, dimes and pennies. In this dirt/gravel driveway alone I usually find a penny or dime around every other day (the rains keep stirring things up).

I have a jar I keep just for found money. When it gets full, I roll the coins up and bring them to my bank. Finding even a penny makes me feel happy!