Where's George?

Do you ever wonder where your money goes?
I'm not talking about the hole in your pocket or the diminished buying power you notice these days. I'm talking about the secret life of the dollar bill you just forked over for a clandestine bag of Peanut M&M's or slid into the soda machine at work. Where'd that bill come from? Where will it go next?

Oh, about 20 years ago (I shudder at the thought), I was working as a teller at a bank. I handled a LOT of money, of course, and began thinking about those very questions. I wondered if I ever handled the same bill more than once. So one day, I got the BRILLIANT idea that I would mark every bill I handled with a symbol of some sort (I forget what it was exactly, but could have been my initials) in a specific place. In my less busy moments, I did this for $20's first, then $100's, $50's, and then $10's. I don't remember if I did any others, but over the years, I must have done in the upper ten thousands of bills. Easily.
In all the years (4-5) that I worked in a bank, it was like a quiet obsession. And I think I only saw one $20 come to me.

That was a bit disappointing.

Well, all that was forgotten until fairly recently when I got a dollar bill and noticed some stamped internet address on it. Around the letter that indicates what federal reserve bank the note was from was www.wheresgeorge.com in a circle. Curious, I looked it up and found a cool website where people can track the history of an entered bill.
How cool is that?

I then entered the bill and found that it had originally been entered in Portland, Maine. According to the report for the bill:

"This bill has travelled 479 Miles in 183 Days, 22 Hrs, 49 Mins at an average of 2.6 Miles per day. It is now 470 Miles from its starting location. "

Since I have entered the bill, I have had 2 other "hits" in the tracking system. All of them are from my local area. Tonight, I entered 21 more bills. They were collected from my daughter's Girl Scout cookie sales.

Wonder what the most travelled bill is? Here's an example for the #1 bill in circulation:

"One Dollar Bill, Serial# K24------I Series: 1999
This bill has travelled 4,191 Miles in 3 Yrs, 12 Days, 17 Hrs, 25 Mins at an average of 3.8 Miles per day. It is now 456 Miles from its starting location. "

The reports tell you more than what I will go into here, such as what state/city it was entered and how long between entries. They even have a place where you could enter Canadian dollars called Where's Willy.

Pretty cool.