Thomas Daigle, Massachusetts man, pays off his mortgage in pennies
A Massachusetts man paid off his mortgage using 62,000 pennies.
“I’ve never saved anything other than pennies. And it started out as a whim. You know, a penny for the mortgage,” Thomas Daigle told NBC affiliate WHDH-TV of Boston.
Photo/Roman Oleinik via wikimedia commons
He said he just wanted his last payment on the house he bought in 1977 with his wife to be “memorable.” At two 400-pound boxes, we’d say that penny payment isn’t going to be forgotten soon.
Thomas made it his mission from the outset of his mortgage to make the final payment in pennies.
“It was something I wanted to do,” he told the Milford Daily News. “I always follow through. I was just praying I didn’t die first.”
Thirty-five years ago as Daigle, a business owner in Milford, and his wife Sandra were leaving the bank after getting the new mortgage on their home, he saw a penny just laying in the parking lot and that’s where it all started.
“I picked it up and I said to my wife, ‘Ah, a penny towards our mortgage,” said Daigle.
Fast forward to this spring when Daigle called his bank and showed up to the Milford Federal Savings and Loan with two large metal boxes full of rolled pennies — 62,000 of them — the last payment on his mortgage.
“Everybody was so happy at the bank I’m surprised they didn’t have a cake or something,” said Daigle.
On average, his penny pile grew at 2.5 pennies per day. It started out in a grape crate, which began to break over the years as the pennies added up. He then bought a pair of steel military rocket launcher ammo boxes to hold the pennies.
