I love to find money, even a penny ever so often. It is so silly to get such a lift in spirits over one cent. Is it because I am frugal, cheap, saving, parsimonious? I don't know, but I have been on a roll lately. With the economy is such a fragile state, I would think people would be more careful with their change. I never even look for this. So, I wonder how much I miss...lol.
Two weeks ago:
Saturday, I found a dime when I was pumping gas.
One week ago:
Monday night, I found a nickel and four pennies, and I forgot where. I do remember I was coming from a store and found it near my car.
Minutes later, I found a penny in an altogether different location--by the Coke machine where I was buying a Coke.
Today:
I found a dime as I was going into the market for produce.
This is getting to be a serious cash flow into my purse, thirty whole cents!
The most I ever found was astounding to me. As I prepared to get out of the car, I put both feet on the ground together like a proper lady. Now, I just drag one foot out, hold onto the door or steering wheel, give a grunt and heave and put the other foot on the ground. Never mind being proper. As I put my proper feet properly on the ground, I noticed something on the ground.
Not wanting to step in vomit, a freshly-emptied milkshake, or a diaper with a load, I looked down. It was a five-dollar bill and three one-dollar bills, folded twice and coming unfolded. It looked like someone had folded them, put them into a pant pocket with the keys and pulled out this cash with the keys.
I picked it up, looked all around for the owner, stood up, looked farther. No one was even on the sidewalk. The person who left the money had probably driven off.
Into the store I went, still keeping an eye out and an ear open for someone bemoaning lost cash. I finished my business and left. Soooo, it looked like I was $8 richer. Having found this amount of money I became a little obsessed with finding more. I scanned the parking lot. There, about 100 feet away was something on the ground. "Trash," I surmised. However, I just had to go look on the way to the car.
Right there, right there in front my eyes, as I approached I sort of trembled as I tried not to run or exclaim. Closer and closer... it was. It was a bill--$10. It had been folded twice, also, just like the other bills. So, the ten had been on the outside and had blown off.
Well, that is the most money I have ever found--$18. I count it as one find because it was from the same pocket and within ten minutes of the first money. I felt really horrible for the person who lost it and would have returned it, but I had no way of finding the person. I was sixty miles from home, so there was no way I would even hear about someone losing her last bit of grocery money or someone needing that money for medicine for his infant. I just rejoiced in my good fortune.
Your turn
What is the largest amount of money you have found at one time?
I'm drawing a blank on this right now (I'll probably remember at like 3am), but all I recall is finding a $5 bill in the front pocket of a pair of overalls we had just bought and brought home from a resale store.
ReplyDeleteThat is cool. I hope that made the overalls free. I always/sometimes check the pockets of wallets and purses at yard sales and thrift stores to see if there is money. If I pick it up because I am interested in purchasing, I look.
ReplyDeleteI found a $20 that had blown into my driveway once. It wasn't any of the neighbor's.
ReplyDeleteKeep picking up those pennies. I recently cashed in my change jar and it amounted to $364! Of course that was a few years worth of saving but still nice.
I found a wad of 20's in a mall parking lot, near the entrance. 80 dollars all up. Like you, I looked around for anybody obviously missing the money. I felt really bad for whoever it was.
ReplyDeleteI read an article about a jogger in Chicago once who had, over the course of a year, collected 1500 dollars in found change! He decided to keep a jar of all he found for a year. Thats how much loose change is out there in most cities. Now I live in the country, I don't think I'll find even a penny.
wow, and here I get excited when I find something bigger than a penny! Most I've ever found is over a dollar in change in a coke machine...I wasn't even buying a coke. I just can't seem to help looking when I pass a machine.
ReplyDeleteI pick up pennies and dimes too! I always say (in my head) "I'm not so rich that I can turn down a penny!" Pennies certainly add up. We save our change in a jar and cash it in to pay for gas on a summer road trip each year.
ReplyDeleteShortly after you posted about coinstar I happened to pass on at the grocery store and lo and behold there was 30-odd cents in there. I doubt I'd have looked had I not read your post on the matter.
The most I've even found was $45. I found it on the floor in the ladies room at the fair. It was in a bank envelope. I picked it up because from a distance I thought it was an air sickness bag which I thought would be a strange thing to find on the floor at the fair. I hung around a bit to see if anyone would come looking for it, but no one did. So I went and bought a $25 ring I'd been admiring and would have never purchased in a million years otherwise. I figured I was still $20 ahead even after the ring.
I also found $12 on the dance floor at a brewery once after I'd begrudgingly paid $12 to hear the band that was playing. It was a neat coincidence that evened things out for me.
Finding cash is tricky though. I know that as happy as I was to find that money someone else was probably really upset for losing it. What can you do. I've certainly lost money too...
Normally I just find a few cents. My dad was always poking his finger in the return of pay phones to try to score that elusive dime (and eventually quarter.) I remember it embarrassing me as a child (mostly when there was a long line of pay phones and he had to stick his finger in every one) but of course that was one of those silly things I got over as I aged. lol
ReplyDeleteThe most 'found money' I've ever had was actually found by my husband when he was a college student. He found an envelope with a few hundred dollars in it at the student center. He took it to security and they said if nobody claimed it within a certain amount of months it was his. As it turned out, nobody came back for it, so it did indeed get turned over to us.
Lorie, Imagine, not having to leave home and finding money in the yard! I always need to rain my change for some very good reason, so I have never kept it for more than a few months. The $12 in there after only a few months, but it was not found money.
ReplyDeleteLindaM, You never can tell. The coke machines and near gas tanks are still good places to stumble across coins.
ReplyDeleteDmarie, I need to develop the habit of looking more often.
ReplyDeleteBLD,
ReplyDeleteThose were two nice sums of money to find and in two places I would not expect to find money. Yes, my $18 find was bittersweet.
GV, See there. You now know one way to have fun, find a bit of money, and embarrass your kids when you have children. That's quite a bit of money for a struggling college student to find...still a lot to lose for another college student.
ReplyDeleteYou should go see my 2nd most recent post today (Lady Luck). I mentioned this blog post in mine... I found a rather nice sum of money last night! Kicks my $5 find in the butt!
ReplyDelete