I don’t usually read the morning paper, but I had the urge to today. I have no work assignments and no obligations until this afternoon. The idea of sipping a cup of tea and slowly pouring over the paper was very appealing.

I could get nostalgic about the good ol’ days when newspaper boxes (vending machines), like shady trees, were planted on every other street corner. I won’t even go into the fact that either of the city’s major dailies could be purchased for only a quarter.

The price is now $1 and the nearest box is a couple blocks away. (The machine requires exact change.)

It’s still an easy destination. A pleasant walk. The hard part is finding four quarters.

Years ago, when I had to bundle up two weeks worth of laundry and haul it off to a Laundromat to do, I used to save quarters. I looked for excuses to pay cash for things hoping to build up a stockpile of silver that would keep the coin-op dryers spinning until my jeans were not damp.

But finding four quarters was no longer a slam-dunk, and I didn’t want to drive to a gas station or drugstore, where I could use bills, just to buy a paper.

I seemed to remember I had an empty cookie tin in which I had some quarters socked away. You know the kind, some sort of European butter cookie you can buy for almost nothing on closeout. I looked on the floor of my bedroom closet then on some shelves until I found the blue round tin.

It was dusty. I can’t remember the last time I looked for quarters.

Opening it was somehow like opening a treasure chest. I didn’t know what I’d find. I ceremoniously wiped off the dust before I pried off the lid.

Wow. Ten quarters and a few nickels and pennies. Around three dollars. Three dollars I had forgotten about, wealth I didn’t think I had.

I wasn’t exactly giddy, but I felt a rush of motivation to look for more change.

I checked the lining of my coat pockets. (I figured the coats had to go to the dry cleaner soon anyway.) I took out the contents of my purse and combed the lining and zipper compartments for coins.

I remember friends who used to save pennies or nickels in glass jars. When they finally took them to a bank — No, they weren’t able to go on vacation, but I remember once a friend cashed in $52 in pennies – enough to for a couple pizzas and a bottle of vino.

When I pulled my pocket change and purse change together, I realized I had about five dollars.

Just a few days ago, I was with friends playing a board game. We talked about different times in our lives when we were poor, when we felt poor; a little bit desperate and a little bit hopeless.

My friend Val shared that she remembered looking for fallen and forgotten change in her couch cushions. We all talked about odd things we did to earn extra money or how we found money in unexpected places.

As I counted my coins, I was happy about taking a little detour from my planned activities to perform a mental inventory of what change, what money, I had that I wasn’t accounting for. I came to an interesting conclusion:

You’re never poor (or as poor as you think you are) when you’re conscious of what you have.

Finding a cache of coins is no small thing.