Just curious . . . I was out walking my dog last week and found 25 dollars on the sidewalk, and no one was around. A folded up 20 and a 5. I looked to see if there was someone close by, but no go. It was a bit of a high – hey, a profit – but I felt bad at the same time. What if it was a kid’s Christmas money that fell out of his pocket? What if it was a little old man’s grocery money? On the other hand, it could have been dropped during a drug deal. . . . who knows?
Then I remembered an incident about 8 years ago at a fair, when I pulled out a 5 to pay for a snack. Put the change back in my purse. Later in the day, pulled out some money to pay for something else, and discovered I was about 20 short. I suspect I dropped it on the ground and someone picked it up. Between the two incidents, I’m 5 up.
So what’s the most amount of money you’ve lost (not in a divorce settlement, or stolen, or at the poker tables) – you just discovered it gone? How much have you found just wandering aimlessly about or rediscovered in pants pockets or something?
I found a $100 bill blowing down the sidewalk once. I was with two other guys and we all stomped on it. Unfortunately, we were on our way to cash machine at the time to get money to purchase, umm, stuff. So we realized no profit from it, in the end.
$50 at the grocery store… New Years Eve about 3 years ago. No one else was around so I grabbed it and stuck it in my pocket. That made my night.
Twenty years ago we lived at the dead end of a ‘court’ which in Aus denotes a little no-through road and are valued by families because they are safe havens for the kids to play and ride their bikes around.
Well, one day my kids were out playing and riding their bikes around when my daughter came bundling through the door waving a $50 note that she had found lying in the gutter.
Being a harried housewife at the time (I was trying to mop the floors while the kids stayed outside) I sent her off with strict instructions to find MORE…of course, not envisaging in my wildest dreams…
She came back grinning like a cheshire bloody cat 5 minutes later with another $50. :eek:
I toddled up and down the street to all of our neighbours to find the owner of the dropped 50’s, but nobody claimed them. The kids all got some new clothes that week. 
A few years ago, i was attending a conference in Alexandria, VA. It was a 20-minute walk from the Metro stop to the hotel, going through the shopping district and then some residential blocks. At a corner in the residential area, i looked down and saw some money in the gutter. Assuming it was a couple of bucks, i bent over and picked it up. And there were 2 $100 bills and 2 $50 bills, for a total of $300.
I picked it up and looked around to see if there was anyone frantically searching the street for their lost cash. The street was deserted. I then got paranoid for a second and wondered if there was some hidden camera on me waiting to see what i would do. I contemplated going to the police station, and if there had been any identifying material accompanying the money i would have. But i figured it was just my lucky day, so i pocketed the money, and went on my way.
I’ve never lost what i would now consider a large amount of cash. When i was a kid, about 12 years old, i lost $5 that i had just been paid for a skateboard (sans wheels). Five bucks was a lot of money to me when i was 12, and i cried. That’s my most vivid memory of losing money.
As an adult, about 12 years ago i left about $100 worth of Christmas gifts in a mall somewhere. What pissed me off most was not the money, but the fact that i had to drag my ass around the stores all over again and buy new gifts during the bedlam of holiday shopping.
I used to buy good sunglasses, but i left one pair on the top of a small mountain during a hike, and a couple of years ago i left another pair at some restaurant in San Francisco. Now i just get the cheap ones.
The best part of my street cleaning gig at Six Flags was all the lost loot I would find. All wallets and purses got turned in, but if I ever found cash, I kept it. Crumpled dollar bills were a daily occurance, but occassionally I’d stumble across a ten or twenty spot and it would make my day. I started getting to the point where I could spot cash laying on the ground from hundreds of meters away. I’d zero in on it like a hawk and casually sweep it into my dustbin, pretending it was garbage until I could get into the back area and pocket it. It was the only way to keep myself entertained in that boring-ass, back-breaking job.
One day while sweeping around the back entrance of the park, I found a $50 bill. I was fifteen years old and that was a whole heap of money to me. I was kinda scared that I would get in trouble for finding it and not reporting it to the police, so I kept it secret for awhile. Then I told my sister and swore her to eternal secrecy. Over fifty dollars!
I lost $100 once. I got it for Christmas and I must have accidently tossed it out with the wrapping paper and boxes. I was incredibly pissed when I realized it.
I found forty bucks!
I found out it fell out of my wallet. 
:dubious:
Left a $20 bill at Walmart in the self-check line-had withdrawn the cash via the debit card
and as is usual with me forgot all about it (in the little money dispense slot) 2 seconds later.
Found over a million pesetas, 28 years ago. One of my neighbors was a farmer and lost his wallet with all the money from selling his crop. The reward he gave me would have been a decent amount for an adult (enough to get a nice meal in a good restaurant) and it was stunning to a kid.
When I was 15, my weekly assignment was 150 pesetas. I was always short of money, somehow, which didn’t really make sense.
Then next year I started re-reading all my books again and found all the folded 100 peseta bills I’d used for bookmarks and left inside books.
I once found 30 bucks in a crowded bar. I tried to turn it in, but the bouncer and bar tender both said that I might as well keep it - there would be no way to tell who really owned it.
I find about $10 a week… … in my washer machine. It must be my wife’s way of tipping me for doing laundry.
I found $110 in an envelope on the golf course once when I was in high school.
I turned in it, and I thought the guy would at least give me a $10 “reward” but nothing.
But later that year, my father and I won the “member member” tournament with pari-mutuel betting. We won about $150 worth of merchandise, and I won about $75 betting us across the board. I figured it was karma.
I don’t ever recall losing more than $20 or so, unless you count the stock market.
a $100 bill outside of a movie theater in Las Vegas, split it with my buddy who was standing next to me when I saw it and stomped on it.
Hundred dollar bill in a garbage can at a mall food court.
The most I found was a $20 bill at the side of a road, back when I was in high school.
I used it to buy a brand new slide rule.
Yeah, it was that long ago. $20 was worth a lot back then. still have the rule, along with the box and everything in it. Sitting on my bookcase.
When I was about 7, one of my little friends and I found a purse with $1500 in the parking lot of the drugstore where we rode our bikes to buy candy. There was identification in the purse, we contacted the owner. She was an older woman who was (obviously) thrilled to have her purse returned to her, and gave us each $20. For whatever reason, when you’re 7, $1500 is a lot of money, but somewhat unreal. $20, on the other hand, was a lot of money that made sense to us because we knew what we could buy with $20, so the whole thing seemed very exciting.
I once left my wallet on the counter of a convenience store. The girls behind the counter called and left me a message. I went a picked it up and gave them both 10 dollars (this was 15 years ago. It seemed like more money then, than it does to me now.)
I found about $350 on the sidewalk outside a tourist trap in Nashville. I went into the store and gave the money to the store owner and we decided that if no one ever came back and asked for it they’d send me the money. I addressed the envelope and put the cash inside and sealed it, and they held onto it. 3 weeks later I got the envelope in the mail, no one ever claimed it. So I was honest and did the right thing, and so did the store owner. It was refreshing.
StG
In line for a ride at an amusement park once, my nephew (who was going on the ride with me, and was a young adult at that point) and I both spotted a 20 on the ground at the same time. We briefly debated turning it in, then decided there was no way to identify who dropped it. So we used it to buy our lunch. 
About 15 years ago, hubby and I had saved up a little money for a nicer computer monitor (remember when nice monitors were expensive?), and went to a computer show. I had an envelope in my purse with $300.00 in it. When we found the monitor we wanted, I looked in my purse, and the envelope was gone.
I found a change purse in the parking lot of a grocery store a few years ago. You know, the little things with a snap-close frame? Turned out there were 9 $50 bills stuffed into it!
I posted a note on the lost and found board in the store – just saying “found a change purse” and my phone number, but no one ever called for it.
How can you lose $450 outside a store and not at least check the customer service/lost and found at that store??