When I was 3 years old, (1966) I found a $20 bill. It took me about 2 years to spend it.
Recently I found a wallet that had quite a bit of cash in it. I tracked down the owner and returned it without ever counting the money…none of my business.
$20 in the elevator of my apartment building. I figured someone had been going to load their laundry card and dropped it. I pocketed it for about five minutes, then felt bad and turned it into the building manager. She posted a generic “Lose something?” sign in the lobby. The money was returned.
Usually I just find my own money that I’ve hidden and forgotten about. I once found $200 in a hidden compartment of my backpack from where I’d stashed it a year earlier to keep it away from the Xi’an airport security folks. As a college freshman, that was a welcome find.
I used to work in the maintence part of a library. We received the books, got our name first on the request list, cataloged them, got them into circulation and also repaired if possible and removed the books from circulation.
We found money in the books on a regular basis. The rule was that if it was less than 2 bucks, we could keep it or put it in the pizza donation box. If it was more, the last borrower was contacted. While I was working there, someone found over 300.
My most memorial find was 34 dimes. In a book that had not been touched for over a year. When I started finding the dimes, I of course called everyone over to watch while I was shaking the book out.
When I was waiting tables I found a little over $300 dollars held together with a paperclip sitting on top of the toilet at work. No I.D.
An hour or so later, I saw a kid, maybe 14 years old talking to the manager in a panic. It was a few days after Christmas, so I guess it was his Christmas money.
I was about 19 or 20 at the time, recently living on my own and always broke. But I gave it back to him.
20 bucks when I was in middle school walking on my way home. Felt like I was a millionaire!
When I was a teen, just when bank machines became widespread, I went to withdraw some cash from one late at night. The guy ahead of me was having trouble with the machine. He tried to withdraw some cash and all it did was make a grinding noise.
I was desperate, because there was no other machine within a long radius and I needed some cash for a cab. There was some sort of intercom thing to report problems but it didn’t work.
So I tried as well, while the other guy watched. I put my card in and the machine made the same grinding noise as before. Only this time a crumpled up wad of bills portuded from the slot.
I pulled on it, and it kept comming and comming - a whole mass of slightly shredded twenties. I can’t remember now exactly how much it was. A few hundred dollars. I split it even with the other guy, though the honest thing would have been to report it next day and hand the money back.
I was more honest on another occasion, when I saw an elderly confused woman leave the bank. She was dropping a trail of fifties and hundreds. I gathered them up for her and hailed her a cab.
2 $20 dollar bills in the parking lot of my old apartment. No one was around so I kept it.
About 20 years ago, I took my niece and nephew, then ages 8 and 6, swimming at the local public lake. Niece felt something papery floating around her and pulled out a twenty. A few minutes later I felt what I thought was a leaf floating around my leg, reached down and pulled out another twenty which I gave to my nephew. We figured someone hit the ATM, put the money in their pocket and forgot to empty it before they went swimming. Kids were thrilled and when their parents arrived to take them home they raced to be first to show them their prize.