62,000 pennies used to pay off mortgage A Massachusetts penny-pincher makes his last mortgage payment with pennies. Ryan Schulteis reports. What started out as a joke 35 years ago ended with a Massachusetts man paying 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. Daigle, from Milford, Mass., recalled how, after signing the mortgage papers 35 years ago, he found a penny on the ground. He and his wife then joked about collecting pennies to pay off the loan -- and the rest is history. Over the next 35 years, Daigle would roll pennies, 50 cents at a time. His bank found out the hard way just how much work that was -- it reportedly took tellers two days to unroll the penny cases.