MAN PAYS OFF MORTGAGE IN CENTS

A Milford, Mass., man saved his pennies to pay off his mortgage--literally. He carted more than 62,000 pennies to the bank to make his last payment.

"Thirty-five years ago when my wife and I took out our mortgage for our first home I happened to pick up a penny in a parking lot," Thomas Daigle told ABC News. "I said, I'm going to pay our last mortgage in pennies.'"

And, that's exactly he did. In all, that's about 427 pounds of pennies at 145 pennies to the pound, though pennies minted after 1982 weigh in at 181 to the pound. Daigle says he didn't weigh them.

The 60-year-old, who would place his change and keys in a bowl each night, would sift through the change and save his pennies. On a rainy or snowy night in central Massachusetts, Daigle would roll three to five packs of pennies and place them in a box in the basement. Along with the pennies in a box downstairs, Daigle would keep a scrap of paper with a running tab of the amount of rolls stored in the boxes downstairs.

"After a few years of rolling pennies, I said this is a doable thing to pay my mortgage off in pennies," said Daigle.

In April, the co-owner of Joseph and Thomas Opticians brought the boxes of pennies around to the back at Milford Federal Savings and Loan Association and made his final payment on his 35th wedding anniversary.

To read the complete article,see: Mass. Man Pays Off Mortgage With Pennies (abcnews.go.com/Business/mass-man-pays-off-mortgage-pennies/story?id=16726959)

Wayne Homren, Editor

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