An old roommate of mine was sifting through and tossing out some old birthday cards once when a crisply entombed twenty dollar bill slid out of a faded card from Grandma. Her eyebrows perked up, her mouth formed a perfect O, and she raised her hand up top for a high five, which I promptly delivered.
Finding a bill zipped up in last year’s ski jacket, laying wet and crumpled in the washing machine, or folded in the pocket of your booze-smelling blazer is such a great high. There may be no such thing as a free lunch, but this sure comes close.
Finding your own money is a lot like discovering an entirely new currency, one that cannot be used to pay down debts or obligations, but only has value when purchasing stuff you probably don’t need and wouldn’t have bought otherwise, like an old-school beanie cap, novelty ten-pound Toblerone bar, or high-octane gasoline. It is disposable income in the truest sense of the phrase.
For the pessimists out there, you may be saying “Barumph! That money has been all chewed up by time and inflation, slowly losing value and unaccumulating interest while prices ramp right on up, making my life less and less affordable. That found money could have purchased more before I lost it than it can today, so why should I celebrate my own stupidity?”
But Pessy, come on, we’re talking about found money here — money that hasn’t been budgeted for, accounted for, remembered for, promised for, or owed for, anything at all, since you lost it! Surely the few sacrificed cents of interest in the bank are a small price to pay for holding that folded up bill, right up to the sky, in your tightly clenched fist, with no claims to satisfy. Sure, it may smell a bit like mothballs, Tide, or Grandma’s skin cream, but that money still works. And it works well.
So let’s call found money what it really is then.
AWESOME!
85 Comments
July 8, 2008 at 12:17 pm
I have to say that I intentionally hide money. Every once in a while I will take $100 in twenties and go gallivanting about the house. I put the money in picture frames, books (the ones I know I will read again) and of course that pot in the kitchen you only use once a year. The ultimate is the winter coat. In April or May, you grab a nice crisp $20 and stuff it in the inside pocket and just imagine you super excitement in October when you put and your jacket and score a twenty spot! Sweet.
April 19, 2010 at 12:11 pm
I do that too!!!! :) yay
May 27, 2010 at 9:13 am
I love finding money @ the dry cleaners (in a suit pocket -left over after a night of crazy dancing at a wedding!)
July 18, 2008 at 10:39 pm
One time, I lost a bunch of Sacagewea coins (like $5 worth) and I didn’t really care because I hated those shitty $1 coins so much. I was about 13 when this happened, so $5 was a shitload of money, but even still I did not care.
I often think kids 20 years from now will say, ” ‘ The fuck you make one dollar coins for?”
July 20, 2008 at 1:19 pm
Shortly after my grandfather died in the early 90′s, I remember being very scared of his bedroom closet. One day I steeled up the courage to go in there, and I started searching his clothes for anything to remember him by. When I got to his WW2 Uniform, imagine my surprise when I found $1000 in wartime currency! I told my father about it, and he gave me the wisest advice I’ve ever received. The money is still in my safety deposit box.
July 2, 2010 at 12:57 pm
Wotcher!
In December, I found a five dollar bill on the floor. :-) I picked it up and unfolded it, and right in the middle there was a note saying, “Merry Christmas!”. :-D Totally made my day. :-)
Cheers,
Sarah
July 29, 2008 at 4:43 am
Paul I do that too. Yesterday I actually found 10 bucks in an old pair of jeans pocket.
August 14, 2008 at 10:02 pm
I seriously doubt that you’re going to find 994 things better than finding money you didn’t know you had. Might have to reorganise this list, man.
May 25, 2009 at 5:02 am
i agree. there is nothing better :)
November 15, 2009 at 11:31 am
I second this completely.
November 16, 2009 at 6:58 pm
i also agree–this is wayyyyyyy up above 994!
September 2, 2008 at 4:20 am
This makes it to the Top Ten of my Best Feelings List!
September 5, 2008 at 3:52 pm
The summer before I went away to college, my mom made me clean my bedroom. I found $65 between various purses and jackets I hadn’t used in awhile. It was completely awesome.
August 15, 2009 at 12:29 am
that’s great!!!!
hate the cleaning-the-room part..
but the finding-the-money part is
AWESOME!
same experience here too
December 19, 2009 at 3:59 pm
i agree! i had been in germany as a foreign exchange student for a year in 2008-2009, and when i came back to my room, i found enough money to get a wii and games (400 or something) in old math books
September 9, 2008 at 2:00 pm
Every new season when I put away a coat, waiting for the next year, I put a five dollar bill in the pocket! Even though I do it purposely, I am often surprised and delighted with myself!
This is a great site!!
October 4, 2008 at 8:16 pm
When I was about twelve I got up to my cottage at the start of the season and was cleaning, when I found last years B-day money. $65.
A twelve year old with 65 dollars, best summer ever :)
November 12, 2008 at 12:22 pm
This is up there with finding a bag of weed you didn’t know you had.
March 24, 2009 at 4:07 pm
LMFAO
November 16, 2009 at 1:40 pm
finding weed is a little better.
June 17, 2010 at 1:16 pm
I once found a gram of hash in my sock drawer…nice, gooey and black…better than finding cash
January 18, 2010 at 3:20 am
lovvve the feeling. =] I always seem to find bud when cleaning my room. It’s no good to hide stuff so good that you can’t even find it!
November 18, 2008 at 4:28 pm
when i was 9, on my birthday me and some friends went for a walk through the bush, I found $30 in change that day… that wasn’t mine to begin with!
December 11, 2008 at 7:32 am
Hahaha!
this always happens to me!
December 17, 2008 at 1:04 am
$20 in a pair of thrift store pants!
March 27, 2009 at 6:56 pm
Haha!
It’s like getting free pants!
April 29, 2010 at 6:40 am
You won’t believe I had the same situation when was living in NJ. I bought summer shorts in Second Hand Store… I was pleasantly surprised when I found old $1 bill in the side-pocket… Ohhh… that was in 1998….
January 22, 2009 at 8:59 pm
One time I found like 90 bucks in the pocket of my coat when I took it back out for winter. AND- I was all broke that week, so it was like winning on a scratch-off ticket!
January 25, 2009 at 10:48 am
The happiest day of your life when your poor.. Not long ago I picked out a hoodie out of my wardrobe I hadn’t worn in a while and suprise ! 20 beans. AWESOME.
March 24, 2009 at 4:08 pm
I switch purses quite often. So, I go to switch back to an old purse I hadn’t used in a while I open up the zipper and BAM! $50 sitting right there.. I was like Hellz to the yeah!!!
March 19, 2010 at 11:31 pm
Ha ha!
April 1, 2009 at 12:52 pm
i love that feeling,
when u find a 20 doller billl in your pocket :)
April 20, 2009 at 5:31 am
I LOVE finding money like that! It really is Awesome =)
April 21, 2009 at 11:06 am
I find money in my pockets almost every 17th of May. National day for Norway.
April 26, 2009 at 12:43 am
Found a $50 bill in the front pocket of an old shirt of mine last week. Awesomo!
April 28, 2009 at 8:17 am
I found 20 dollars in a hidden loose draw in my room once and was like wow
May 16, 2009 at 10:41 pm
my friend always finds random bits of money on the floor, but i never have any luck! lol. But once I found a £50 note on the floor, a blind man[or woman] must have droped that!
May 18, 2009 at 9:12 pm
[...] things: Waking up before your alarm clock and realizing you’ve got lots of sleep time left, Finding money you didn’t even know you lost, Wearing underwear just out of the dryer, When cashiers open up new check-out lanes at the grocery [...]
June 5, 2009 at 7:18 pm
This happens to me so often, it’s great. It almost feels as if money just appears for me. XD Unfortunately it doesn’t and it’s just me finding cash I’ve forgot to put into my “piggy bank”. Still great, though!
June 10, 2009 at 1:20 am
whenever this happens with a 20 my first thought is always “DUB-SACK!”
June 18, 2009 at 1:42 pm
I love finding money in places!! especially winter coats, that’s where it usually happends!!! I was going through my old winter coats from years ago and I had found an old two dollar bills. Those don’t exist in canada anymore. I had forgotten what they looked like until then.
June 21, 2009 at 11:56 am
I found 3 grand in an online savings account I thought I had emptied ages ago. That’s like the most (legit) found money – ever. I also once found a Benjamin on the street. Decided to treat my girlfriend’s friends to dinner and was labeled a show off for doing so. Still, finding money is MONEY!
July 29, 2009 at 3:50 pm
Love finding money you forgot you had, the best is always like when your harcord broke and you can;t afford to go out and do anything and you sit home and decide to crack open a book. I found 15$ in S.E. Hinton’s “The Outsiders” lol
July 30, 2009 at 4:24 pm
i have a habit of putting money in my pants pocket and forgetting it so laundry day is payday!! sweet!!
March 19, 2010 at 11:29 pm
I know tell me about it! But my mom doesn’t check the pockets so all those dollar bills get found soggy!
March 26, 2010 at 3:45 pm
I’m so glad I live in Canada.
Which means we don’t have bills for $1.00!
We have COINS!!
AWESOME!
April 29, 2010 at 6:44 am
Honey, that is not Awesome, we rather be having normal $1 paper bills like in US…
August 12, 2009 at 2:53 pm
Gotta admit…finding money anywhere is great-Here recently, I was shopping at Wal-Mart with my fiance & his daughter, and laying there on the ground was what looked like a $100 bill. Went to pick it up, and it was a folded up advertisement with a picture of money on it. It looked so real, we put it back down on the ground and just watched as people either passed right by it or actually picked it up just to get the shock we did…kinda makes me wonder who was watching us, lol.
August 26, 2009 at 7:50 pm
There’s a name for this…a Sniglet (Google it.) Finding money in your pocket you forgot was there is “Buckstacy.”
At our house, the “___stacy” suffix now also applies to other things we find that we forgot about.
August 31, 2009 at 9:20 am
[...] #995 Finding Money you didn’t even know you lost: I’ve done this and it’s like free money to blow [...]
November 12, 2009 at 11:50 pm
i found 20 dollars in a purse i hadnt used for a long time because were rich we never need something more than once anyway i found a 100 dollar bill
November 12, 2009 at 11:51 pm
it wasnt 20 sorry
December 24, 2009 at 6:14 am
lol im so dumb it was 100 argh our family dont usually use 20 dollar bills only when we need to use little change……… :)
November 15, 2009 at 5:21 pm
I find money around my house so often that I have decided that I have a money fairy.
November 16, 2009 at 11:17 pm
I want a money fairy, lol.
November 16, 2009 at 1:46 am
[...] présente quotidiennement l’un des petits plaisirs de la vie. Citons par exemple, au hasard, trouver de l’argent qu’on ignorait avoir perdu, dormir dans des draps neufs, l’odeur de l’herbe fraîchement coupée, l’odeur de [...]
November 16, 2009 at 11:16 pm
I was cleaning my room out one day and found a bunch of birthday cards. Before throwing them away I decided to reread them one more time, good thing I did or I would have thrown away a $100 bill without ever knowing.
November 17, 2009 at 2:17 pm
i just found a $100 traveller’s check from a trip i took in high school!
November 18, 2009 at 8:03 am
Once when I was unemployed for a long time and hadn’t been out in ages I decided to cheer myself up by scrapping together the bus fair to go to my friends house (out of my penny jar). When I got off the bus, a piece of paper blew onto my leg and got stuck there – it was £10! I went to my friends and it turned out he had a poker game planned. I was so desperate to win more money that it truly broke my heart when I blew the whole tenner without ever getting ahead in the game. On my way home, while I was lamenting wasting my free mini-fortune, I found £20 at that same bus stop. It wasn’t money I had lost then found, but it was AWESOME
November 20, 2009 at 4:25 am
This makes me wonder how much money I may have thrown away that could have been between papers or something like that…. But finding money is always awesome! On halloween night i was walking on the street and I spotted a 20 on the ground. There was another girl walking towards me that was closer to it then I was and I thought for sure she would spot it and pick it up. She walked right over it!! YESSS!!!! I guess it was calling my name :)
November 27, 2009 at 5:19 pm
I once found a $1.00 bill on the stairs, but it was actually my moms. Ugh! before she told me that was her dollar I was like “jackpot!”
December 1, 2009 at 12:50 am
Heh. I found a dollar in my pocket today!
December 17, 2009 at 6:19 pm
When i was in the sixth grade I found a $50 bill in the hallway. i took it home and told my grandpa and he said keep it and i did and then one day i was looking for it and i could not find it it made me so mad, but i got over it.
This was my story about finding a $50 bill on the ground at school.
December 19, 2009 at 2:49 am
My wife just found $100 in a book that we got for our wedding. We thought, “oh, a money management book. Great gift, I guess,” and swiftly put it on the shelf. When she was reorganizing, she found it with a bookmark. “That’s odd. I didn’t think either of us had read this,” she thought. It wasn’t a bookmark! It was $100!
AWESOME!
January 17, 2010 at 12:32 am
i know how awesome it is to find money laying around .one day i was walking home from the used bookstore where i’d spent some of my last ten. i was feeling kind of guilty, because that money was supposed to go to my Europe trip when i looked down and saw a ten dollar bill laying in the grass . i felt so incredibly happy.
March 19, 2010 at 11:24 pm
Awesomeeee!
March 10, 2010 at 3:20 pm
My story is similar to CK’s story.
Yesterday night I was looking for something to read at my bookshelf and noticed one of the novels had a bookmark in it. I wondered why I stopped reading that novel, and opened it up, The bookmark was actually $180.
March 19, 2010 at 11:24 pm
Wooo! Always happens to me dude!
March 23, 2010 at 9:09 am
When i start reading this i felt lot boring, but surprised to see these many ppl hv tht experience. Eventhough i also sometimes happens to get money from old clothes, but i wasnt v. happy.
but interesting to knw these many ppl replied..
April 16, 2010 at 4:22 pm
[...] .http://1000awesomethings.com/2008/06/27/995-finding-money-you-didnt-even-know-you-lost/ [...]
April 18, 2010 at 1:21 am
that´s just awesome i once found a bill that i put a year ago in the front pocket of a shirt
i often find some change in the bottom of my backpack
April 27, 2010 at 8:34 am
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