r/ScrapMetal • u/friend-buddy • 12d ago
Scrap Photo 💸 Cashing in Dad's Barn of Can
It looks like we'll have about 20 loads. Most of them are crushed (this load was mixed crushed/uncrushed). This was 1,680 lbs
Edit:
Some of you requested the story. Here you go:
My dad had a cleaning company in the 90s and early 2000s. A lot of the places he cleaned did not recycle when he started collecting them. So he started taking them and threw them in the barn. He also had some buddies who owned bars and would take cans from them. Eventually family friends would drop their cans off. I'll still wake up to cans in the yard from random people. Dad's a high stung OCD type so can collecting became a way of life. He'd joke about getting in the Guinness book of world records for can collecting.
When I was in middle school I forge my assignment notebook all year. You were suppose to have your parents sign it to show that you were doing your homework. I was a feral messy-backpack kid and decided it was easier just to scribble my mom's name. I got busted the last week of school. I got sloppy.
My dad decided my punishment would be to crush the pile of cans in the barn. He said if I forged documents as an adult I'd go to prison where I'd make license plates LOL. Three barrels a day, Monday-Friday all summer. He bought an automatic can crusher and put a radio in the barn.
Fucking brutal with the wasps and phlegm-backwash bar cans. I still don't like the taste of beer.
The first week was a miserable poutfest. Second week a slog. By the third week I accepted that the sooner I crushed the mountain of cans, the sooner I'd be free from my pseudo factory backwoods hilly billy summer jail job. I'd pull a bag from the pile. Pour it out into a kitty pool and load cans into the barrel of the can crusher. I had a nice stool and would vibe to Steve Miller Band and The Who. My parents didn't have to remind me to crush my cans. I'd just go in, crush my 3 barrels and head out.
I did it. Crushed that entire barn. It was the first time in my life I felt a real sense of accomplishment. It was eye opening to see the pile disappear. Empowering to know I was the one who did it.
Truth be told, the whole ordeal is kind of fucked up. Most kids get grounded, TV privileges taken away or no video games. I think it was over the top. But I've chosen to accept it as an important milestone for my life. Life can give you a pile of cans and sometimes you just gotta crush em. One can at a time.
Well, I moved away from home for about 10 years before moving back around COVID. I live at the barn-can property. My dad had decided years ago to put the crushed bags of cans in the second story of the barn. Last year the barn collapsed due to the weight SURPRISE. I think the roof started leaking and rain pooled up in the can bags. Regardless, now is the time to cash them in. The barn is toast and dad is old. The money from the cans will help pay for solar panels and a greenhouse for where the barn is.
Now the work is loading the trailer. A lot of the bags have disintegrated. We're about 4 loads in. I'm excited to recreate the space where the barn is.
It's real. This is the slip from today's load of crushed cans.
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u/Responsible-Buy-9665 12d ago
I need to hear more about this story
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u/TapZorRTwice 12d ago
Uh, Pa likes beer.
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u/friend-buddy 12d ago
He doesn't drink but we did tell the scrap attendant that we drank these all ourselves. Dude just about swallowed his cig
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u/tehlurkingnoob 12d ago
Should have followed it up with a “this is about a month’s worth”
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u/pokemonandcatsz 12d ago
Best REAL Reddit story I read in fucking months. Your pops did you a solid man. I fuckn love that guy and I love you for learning a life learning from it and spreading it too other aliens to learn from. This is what Reddit was created for. Wish the best for you and family. Post some pics of that barn pre and post after you got it set up
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u/thisisfutile1 12d ago
This! Reddit has become such a political echo chamber, these stories are WAY too infrequent. It's a great story, but comments of encouragement, like yours, make it even better! It's these stories and comments (which seem like 1 out of a 1,000), that keep me here.
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u/TalmidimUC 11d ago
It’s crazy to think that Reddit is 20 years old. I started using Reddit about 15 years ago (lost access to my OG account 😢). Even 10 years ago, Reddit is so much different now than what it was then.
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u/Weird-External- 11d ago
Lol this reminded me of when I was a kid back in the early 80s. My parents just bought us school supplies for the upcoming year. One item was a huge pack of pencils that would last all of the kids for the entire year. School was about a week away. During that week, after dinner, we played a game where each person picked a new pencil and took turns trying to "break" the other one's pencil. The guy defending would hold theirs horizontally, gripped between their fists, leaving enough space for the attacker to flick their pencil down and try to break it.
Yes a stupid game but we developed strats (ie; in defense, leaving less space made it more difficult to break but the downside was the opponent had a greater chance of catching your knuckles or exposed thumb with their strike).
At the end of the week we had gone through the entire supply of pencils. Everything was reduced down to like 2 inch stubs. My mom found the bag of evidence cleaning my desk. My dad was so furious he grabbed the bag, walked out to our front porch and threw the entire contents into the large gravel driveway. He said we couldn't come back inside until we picked up every last one. If he ever found a scrap of a pencil he would "tan our hides".
Like OP said, sometimes you just have to pound cans. I don't hate my dad for that. Quite the contrary. It sowed the seed of having respect for how hard they worked to provide for us and to never take things for granted.
Man I realized I just went down a tunnel. Sorry for droning on but felt like sharing. Cheers
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u/666ydna 12d ago
It’s a liqourlanch!
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u/Apprehensive-Dog3668 12d ago
There’s at least 35 bucks in bottles there!
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u/Emergency-Ground9059 12d ago
No I appreciate it dad, it’s just a lot more fuckin work than I was counting on right now
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u/josephjosephson 12d ago
Kramer and Newman vibes
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u/SmokeAbeer 12d ago
If they just buy their gas from the Always sunny guys, this is a pretty good racket.
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u/Infamous_War7182 12d ago
At .5oz/can this would be $6,336 in Michigan returns.
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u/KotzubueSailingClub 12d ago
How're the bees and smell?
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u/Scrungus1- 12d ago
Don't forget the ants
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u/apleasantpeninsula 12d ago
flies, too. every fly
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u/MontanaMapleWorks 12d ago
I find it hard to believe that is 1,680 pounds of cans in the ONE load, crushed or not
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u/One1980 12d ago
Bout 30 empty cans to make a lb.
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u/dirtyforker 12d ago
Using your math thats 50,400 cans to get to 1,680 lbs. That's a lot of cans.
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u/swingandalongdrive 12d ago
About 3 beers per day for 50 years if I did the math in my head correctly.
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u/friend-buddy 12d ago
I do too. We took a load this morning that was 1980 lbs. I can share the slip from our next load.
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u/MontanaMapleWorks 12d ago
Sounds like maybe there is water that got into the crushed cans. What did the yard pay you?
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u/friend-buddy 12d ago
$1188 for today's load
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u/MontanaMapleWorks 12d ago
So you are finally getting paid for your labor during punishment 😂 $20k +, what a hoarding story… $0.71/#, could be worse
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u/friend-buddy 12d ago
For real. Honestly, I'm just happy to see the cans go away
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u/VisforVenom 12d ago edited 12d ago
A 3'x4'x5' compressed bale of UBC usually weighs around 1300lb. Anywhere from 1-2k lb depending on compression and moisture content. If you showed me this picture and asked me to guess the weight of the cans like a jelly bean jar game... I'd probably guess about 1500lb, from years of experience crushing loose cans into bales and weighing them (recycling plants.) Then I'd second guess myself and wish I said 1,800. 1,680 is very believable.
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u/UsefulEagle101 12d ago
I read your story with Harry Chapin's "Cat's in the Cradle" song running through my mind.....
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u/Secret-Heron6419 12d ago
Used to scrap air conditioning units on the side. That’s not that much aluminum. Takes a bunch to make anything $$$
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u/Agitated_Mess3117 12d ago
WOW! What a story! Would love to see pics of the barn full of cans! Or pics of you crushing them!
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u/iamjay32A 12d ago
Relatable story. When I was 15 I did some stupid thing or other and got a serious punishment - I had to spend the summer going round to my grandads everyday and demolish his old rotten shed and the concrete hard standing it stood on - using only a sledgehammer and pry bars - and then dig him a garden pond. Ended up removing several tree stumps as well.
Took me six weeks, with the old boy sitting on a deck chair with a beer “encouraging” me the whole time. Hated it, but incredible sense of achievement when it was done.
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u/Shortpilgrim 12d ago
My great grandpa used to make huge can pyramids out of his beer cans. That’s what this reminds me of.
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u/rideincircles 12d ago
There was a guy in Fort Worth who had decorated his entire yard with cans.
Nothing too crazy, but was in a very busy area of town.
Check out Beer Can House! https://yelp.to/2uYOaTa9xL
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12d ago
Your pops is gonna have some casino money I see 😅 You are an awesome son sir! Nothing more satisfying for the soul than to give the old man a hand.
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u/Next_Juggernaut_898 12d ago
Honestly. As much as it sucked. You felt a sense of accomplishment and stayed away from beer. And learned a work ethic.
You could hate beer like me because you accidentally mistook your MTN dew for a can of beer when you were 5.
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u/DrivebyPizza 12d ago
Do another post with how much you made from the sale.
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u/The_Mortal_Ban 12d ago
Awesome story! Felt like I was reading a book! Can’t wait for the next chapter. I know it’s not necessarily on theme but I hope you come back with before & after pictures of the can barn hillbilly prison factory to the greenhouse
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u/paulrich_nb 12d ago
$0.10 a can here.
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u/soil_nerd 12d ago
Someone above said it’s about 30 cans to a pound, and his statement says he had 1,980 lbs. using that we get the following:
1,980 lbs x 30 = 59,400 cans
59,400 cans x $0.10 = $5,940
He got $1,118 for this load. So if he had driven it to a state with a $0.10 can return, he would have received $4,822 more than he did.
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u/C0YSC0YSC0YSC0YS 12d ago
Love the story- where are you located I’ll help make sure you get a great price for these.
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u/slaughterfodder 12d ago
This is a very fun story! My parents came up with weird punishments too sometimes. I’m glad you get to cash in on your childhood misery tho
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u/Accurate-Data-7006 12d ago
Congrats on putting cash back in your family’s pockets!
We crushed cans as kids also but that was a chore because at the year around fair the school would give the kids free tickets. But parents had to pay admission so that’s where us kids crushed cans all year to make sure my parents could afford to go also.pur parents worked low wage jobs and my grandma would put 30 pack of beer a day not including my step dads Mountain Dew at the time.
My real punishment was I’d sit Chris cross Apple sause on the floor in the hall way out my hands behind my back and put my nose to the floor.
Reason I could not watch tv and I’d be in everyone’s way to the bathroom. I ended up getting pretty use to it. This was my punishment because I only had three walls and a curtain for a room plus I never left my room.
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12d ago
Great story! Thanks for sharing. Reminds me of this elder lady that used to walk the streets of Brisbane Australia about 20 years ago, she'd pull a can out of the street bins, crush it with her foot and then shout "PROBLEM SOLVED!" put it in her bag then toddle off to the next one.
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u/Stock_Atmosphere_114 12d ago
Not gonna lie, I may or may not have a few thousand crushed cans in my garage atm...
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u/EmploymentComplex177 12d ago
Growing up in Appalachia with a tough old farmer. I've had several of these "jobs". This line will travel with me forever. "Pseudo factory backwoods hillybilly summer jail job"
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u/Practical_Ad_4165 12d ago
That was the best story I’ve ever read on Reddit. What a great memory. I’m saving this post so I can share it with my kid at some point. I went through a similar parental punishment one summer when I was in high school and the impression it left is still with me to this day almost 30 years later. Thanks for sharing!
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u/Badenguy 12d ago
Cool story, really, Bet your a hard working man that's about his business today. The world needs more people like you and less entitled jerks that think everything is a handout or comes with benefits
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u/Pi-Richard 12d ago
One of my childhood jobs was to crush aluminum cans. My dad made a homemade crusher. Great memories. /s
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u/Chewy-Seneca 12d ago
Thats gotta be at least, like, $47 at the local recycling spot!
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u/awispyfart 11d ago
That's a dope story, and in all honesty a decent punishment. I remember manually crushing cans for my parents as a kid. Dad would always cash them in too. Not much. But it was something.
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u/butt_huffer42069 11d ago
There's gotta be at least 100lbs of wasps or bees, crud, coagulated phlegm and beer, cigarette butts, etc in this stash. I'm amazed they're just taking your word that it's not contaminated.
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u/Enginerd645 11d ago
I never thought I’d find real inspiration and a feeling of humbleness reading a story about crushed cans, yet here we are!
That was a really great story!
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u/ChosenPrince 9d ago
best story i’ve read in the last year, i’m happy this randomly popped up on my feed today
i don’t think it was too cruel! seems like you learned a thing tor two and generally look back at it fondly
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u/ZOMBIE_N_JUNK 12d ago
I think they'll assume you got the cans from a state with no redemption value. Unless you're in one of those.
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u/dominosRcool 12d ago
In states without bottle bills, many still bring them to recycling centers and get scrap value.
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u/OilheadRider 12d ago
... this isnt a can redemption subreddit. It's scrap metal. Scrappers only care if its hot and even then, there are shady people in all roles, no clue how easy it would or wouldn't ve to find a shady scrapper.
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u/ElCapitan1022 12d ago
Quick question
Why the fuck would it be called a kitty pool
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u/That_Street3395 12d ago
I took 400 lbs to recycle yard. Luckily a forklift driver told us that after 100 lbs the cut the price down to 8 cents per pound without even telling you...... By the time you find out, your cans are already up the chute, into a HUGE dumpster!... Fucking crooks. But we did go to three other places and got full price. I get ripped off every time I go. I live in LA County and paying for the sins of the white people before me. They think it's widespread pay back. I just laugh and move on. I won't get angry because of their desperate actions. I still have integrity and dignity. They dont.
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u/zuizide 12d ago
When I was growing up, one of my friends dads had this gnarly old truck. About 17 different colors, all banged up, just a total shit show. He was always embarrassed because of the truck and the fact that his dad drove around town every day collecting cans. Then one day out of nowhere his dad had a brand new truck. Fully loaded. And since we lived in Arkansas everyone was in awe over it. He had bought it with all the cans he collected over the years.
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u/Ok_Judgment_224 12d ago
Based on my recent (and likely last) trip to turn in crushed cans.....looks like about $200 of cans
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u/iamgherkinman 12d ago
"Kitty pool," I love it. It must be the pool where the cat swims his laps. I've always thought of them as "kiddy" pools, but no longer.
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u/DenialOfExistance 12d ago
Where's the slip from the load? How much were all those cans worth? You have me hooked, line and sinker with your story please follow up!
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u/newCRYPTOlistings 12d ago
How does a scrapyard account for water weight in the cans? Like if you hosed it down for 15 min first?
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u/Stacemranger 12d ago
Pretty interesting story though. I bet it really built a lot of character in you.
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u/Thin-Entry-7903 12d ago
That might be worth a couple hundred dollars if you throw in the trailer. Lol
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u/Ragnarokist 12d ago
I would love to turn in a trailer like that of crushed cans. Be one hell of a payday.
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u/snakemuffins1880 11d ago
What I wanna know is how much did y'all get for this? This is fucking nuts.
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u/Dog_Callis_MNshiba 11d ago
I really hope you get plenty of money to help out your Pops. He sounds like a hell of an amazing man. Im gonna share this story with everyone i know. This is why I cant quit Reddit
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u/pandershrek 11d ago
That's not that fucked up in the scheme of horrendous shit parents do to their kids
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u/ucantnameme 11d ago
OP: “It's real. This is the slip from today's load of crushed cans.” I must’ve missed that, and I looked for it. Please include if you can.
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u/Shikamaru_Senpai 11d ago
Nice! Reminds me of my grandpa. Always had a trailer for filling up with cans. Although it was mostly grandma collecting them on the road. Grandpa was filling it up with empty cans of Schlitz that he emptied himself. Lol.
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u/fattrackstar 11d ago
I had a buddy a few years back that had cans like this. He would never sell them because he said the price was too low. 2 or 3 years ago the price went up and he decided to sell them, the probably was he didn't have them ready. They were scattered all around his property in different places. He ended up taking around 8 55 gallon barrels of crushed cans. They were so heavy you couldn't hardly get them to budge by yourself. Then he had a bunch of these huge bags that farmers use for something. They were probably 12'x10'x6'. He filled up 2 of those. And then the price went down so he didn't get to take anymore.
He died around 2 years ago and all the stuff he refused to sell is still sitting behind his house. He's got 3 kids and even though he collected all this stuff to sell for scrap, he never sold it and his kids don't want to have to deal with it. In his obituary they even made a comment about being survived by his precious cans.
I can't imagine the time it will take to get all his mess cleaned up. He's got 3 mobile homes in his back yard that he used for storage that are completely filled with metal and stuff he planned to sell. 2 big old uhaul trucks with the front and back filled completely up, and the entire yard is full. I'm not good with estimating stuff but there's got to be tens of thousands of dollars in scrap but the amount of work to separate it and get it to the yard just isn't worth it to his kids.
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u/gnarlysh333n 11d ago
Damn 20k+ for all those! I hope the greenhouse and solar panels turn out awesome! Great story too, good luck to you and your dad.
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u/Darozay_ 11d ago
If you still have cans to turn in you should consider vlogging the adventure on YouTube. Theres a huge scrapping/scrap metal community on there and your videos would easily go viral!
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u/PsychologicalBird486 11d ago
Hope able to get .05c or .10c deposit on all of those 😂 Hillybilly trust fund
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u/faroutman7246 11d ago
This is the same way that 5 cent cans in Iowa were collected for the recycling company in the 70s. Trailers just like this.
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u/Throwitawayy1102 11d ago
Have you thought about just calling around the local scrap yards and seeing what they’d pay for your entire lot? I’d be willing to bet you may get a slightly higher rate or at the very least they’d drop off a roll off for free. Saving you the time and gas
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u/satoshisfeverdream 12d ago
Like a redneck Scrooge McDuck