A Ton of Money
April 18, 2008 – 6:00 amI was recently reading an article in which someone was quoted as saying a problem they faced was costing "a ton of money." Of course, his ton was figurative, merely meaning "a lot," but it got me thinking... just how much is a ton of money worth?
The first thing is to find out how many bills or coins are in a ton (2000 pounds - 907.18474 kg). We'll take our coin weights from Wikipedia, and we'll trust the U.S. Treasury on U.S. paper money weighing around 1 gram per bill.
- U.S. Pennies: 2.5g - 362,874 coins - $3,628.74
- U.S. Nickels: 5.0g - 181,437 coins - $9,071.85
- U.S. Dimes: 2.268g - 399,993 coins - $39,999.30
- U.S. Quarters: 5.67g - 159,913 coins - $39,978.25
- U.S. Half Dollars: 11.340g - 79999 coins - $39,999.50
- U.S. $1 bills - $907,185
- U.S. $5 bills - $4,535,925
- U.S. $10 bills - $9,071,850
- U.S. $20 bills - $18,143,700
- U.S. $50 bills - $45,359,250
- U.S. $100 bills - $90,718,500
All the numbers are rough of course. It definitely looks like the Treasury was shooting for dimes, quarters, and half dollars to all be worth $40,000 a ton. But of course, since we're talking about a ton of money and things costing a ton of money, I figured I'd take things that can be weighed in tons and see how many tons of money they cost, using pennies because they'll give us the most tons and be most entertaining.
A Hummer H2, relatively loaded, has an MSRP of $64,000 and a curb weight of 6,614 pounds. That's 17.6 tons of money and 3.307 tons of car, meaning you're paying roughly 5.32 tons of money per ton of car.
On the more expensive side of the scale, you've got a 2007 Ferarri 599 GTB Fiorano F1, relatively loaded, at $337,278 for a car that has a curb weight of 3,726 pounds. That's 92.75 tons of money and 1.863 tons of car, meaning you're paying roughly 47.78 tons of money per ton of car.
On the cheaper side, you've got a 2008 a Kia Rio base model at 11,515 MSRP for a car that has a curb weight of 2365 pounds. That's 3.166 tons of money (in pennies) and 1.1825 tons of car, meaning you're paying roughly 2.667 tons of money per ton of car.
Quite interesting that the Hummer H2, costing nearly 6 times as much as the Kia, is only about twice as much per ton. When you put it in those terms, it looks like a bargain. But, in a way we can compare them to meat. A pound of 20% fat ground beef (basically the cheapest kind) is running $2.79 a pound at Safeway's online supermarket (as of this writing), yet a pound of flank steak (what they use for fajitas, not even one of the really expensive cuts) is $6.99 a pound. So the price per pound ratio of a Hummer H2 to a Kia Rio is better than the price per pound ratio of flank steak to cheap ground beef. See!? It's a bargain, I tell ya!
Now, what Rough Equivalents can you come up with for a ton of money?
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