Hill Of Beans

Have you ever heard the saying "he's not worth a hill of beans?" Or maybe you have heard "it's not worth a hill of beans."

Just how much is a hill of beans worth in 2020?
Let's find out!

First, let's go over our methodology (for you science, math and geology fans).  

For hill size, we went with 20.3 feet tall and 40.6 feet wide. How did we arrive here? According to Wikipedia, the top 13 worldwide man-made hills average 203 feet. We went for 10% of this because it seemed reasonable (not scientific but friendly nonetheless).

And yes, for fun we considered the largest hill size. For the US this is 99 feet (before it's a mountain), while that is 659 feet for our Soviet friends and 1959 feet in the UK. Later we do show the average of these (1205.7 feet tall and 2411.4 feet wide), just for fun. Let's just say you can retire on those hills pretty easily.

Next, we went to find out the cubic feet of our hill (8760) and the weights for this volume of beans - for Navy Beans, Cocoa Beans and Coffee Beans.

We also found the retail prices for each of our bean friends - Navy banes at $0.89/pound, Cocoa Beans at $1.07/pound and Coffee Beans at $8.50/pound. Yes, we can argue these prices and other points, but please remember this is for fun too.

So, where does that leave us and just what is a hill of beans (20.3 foot) worth in 2020?

Cocoa Beans

• $15,837
• median 401k balance at age 35
• Used 2007 Porsche Cayman 

Navy Beans

• $391,134
• seven times the average US salary in 2020
• 2019 Ferrari 812 Superfast (new)

Coffee Beans

• $2.6 million
• median house price in Menlo Park, CA (home of Facebook)
• 2020 Bugatti Chiron (new, well almost, it's $3M - you need a few more beans)

So, maybe we should aspire to be worth a hill of beans - depending on the beans and hill, of course.

Ready to have some fun? Let's look at what the big hills are worth.

• Cocoa Beans: $3.2B  - valuation of Canva
• Navy Beans: $82.2B - how much the world bank gave to the poorest countries in 2019 (population totaling 500 million)
• Coffee Beans: $547.4B - how much total merchandise Chinese e-commerce company Alibab sold, in 2017

There's a bean-counter joke here somewhere... have a great day!