What is the most money you have found?

Whether it be on the street or in your house

The most I have found is £1

$100 bill under a shoe-trying-on bench in Champs sports back in the 90s.

Kept it and bought a N64 controller (blue!) with it.

At one time about $800 of my own money that I hid and forgot about.

I once found a $5 bill.

Some time in the late 80’s shopping at Christmas time I found $125.
I found a tightly rolled up 20 dollar bill in my beading kit. I was using it as a temporary core for a tubular peyote design and forgot to place in back in my wallet after the project was complete.

$200 in cash in an old backpack. It was part of the luggage I had used flying domestically in China and I had been advised that stuff was frequently stolen at airport security, so I hid it. Apparently too well. It was a nice find a couple years later, though.

Found a $20 dollar bill at the bottom of the pool last month.

I asked the lifeguards and the teacher of the aquatics class if anyone reported missing some money. (One of the lifeguards had seen the bill when moving the ropes after the class but didn’t want to get wet retrieving it. Was surprised it was a 20.)

So I gave it to the pool manager and suggested it be added to the lifeguard Xmas party fund.

The most I had found at the pool before was 87 cents one day last June. And I thought that was “big”.

I don’t think I ever found anything larger anywhere before.

Walked up to a SuperAmerica counter several years ago and found about $600 in bills scattered on the floor and the magazine racks. Someone had dropped their pay, I guessed. Gathered it up and gave it to the clerks. They told me the person came back later in the day really freaked out and claimed it, but for all I know they could have just kept it.

No, I’m not the guy to pick it all up and walk out of the store whistling happily about my good fortune.

Found $100 bill at Michigan Adventure amusement park this past summer. Felt bad that someone was probably gonna have a really shitty day (it was about mid morning when I found it), but what was I gonna do-- ask if anyone lost a hundred bucks?

Don’t remember what we ended up doing with it.

I found $120 at the Airport one time. It was laying in a random place, plenty of people walked right over it. I am the first to bend down and pick it up.
I found $40 in the produce section at the grocery store.
I found a bunch of money at the stadium where I work the concession stand. It amazes me how much money people drop. I wonder if they miss it. Knock on wood, I have never lost money. I lose ‘things’ alot, not money, though.

Found Aus$20 blowing down the street as a backpacker, at a point I had about $3 in my pocket to last for food until payday. No one else in sight.

I’ve found £20, but the owner (a small child) showed up in tears looking for it shortly afterwards, so I didn’t keep that one.

Found $10 a couple of times.

Found $20 once, but I saw the fellow who dropped it and gave it back. He was a nice older fellow from the Mennonite community in that area. He gave me a couple of dollars in thanks and told me to go buy something to drink. As it was just short of 100 F out and we’d been outside at a show all day, I thanked him and did just that.

Depends on what is meant by “find”.

I can think of two occasions involving reasonably substantial sums.

The first: I was walking down the sidewalk of a fairly main street with a friend of mine when we were in our teens. It was in the middle of the day. Suddenly, I spot a $50 (Canadian) bill just sitting on the sidewalk. I grab it of course, then I spot a couple more … and then a positive flurry of $50 bills littering the sidewalk.

I soon saw where they were coming from: a little elderly lady, obviously very confused, was dropping them from her arthritis-gnarled hand. We introduced ourselves. She had just come from the nearby bank, where she had withdrawn several thousand dollars in fifties. I guess the bank clerk just handed them to her.

We gathered up all we could find (with the help of some other passers-by) and put them in an envelope for her. We hailed a cab for her (she was pretty frail), and sent her on her way home.

Don’t remember exactly how much money was involved, must have been several thousand. Of course, although we “found” the money, we didn’t keep any.

The second: Many years ago. I went to an ATM late one night. I put my card in, punched in my code - the machine made an odd noise but no money came out.

Another guy came to use the machine. I warned him it wasn’t working. He said 'Its the only machine in the area - I’ll risk it". He punched in his code. The machine made a grinding noise, and a thick wad of crumpled bills came out. He sad “split it?” and I agreed - I took a couple of hundred bucks. Theft for sure, but I couldn’t see any way to return the cash to the Bank even if I wanted to … anyway the statute of limitations is long expired on that one, by decades. :smiley:

I found $80 (four folded twenties) on the floor of a bar once. I picked it up and looked around for a few minutes with them visibly in my hand, and no one claimed it. I’d probably turn it in to the bartender today, but I was a selfish 22-year old at the time so I bought a round for my friends and kept the rest.

The most I have found as a single find was a little folded wad of four £20 notes. I handed it in at the police station - nobody came asking for it so I got it back after 6 months.

I find smaller amounts all of the time - one time I ran a year-long blog keeping track of my findings day by day - here - (I found something nearly every day) - totalling more than £100 in the year.

ETA: Actually, I found more than that recently, but I saw the person drop it - a guy was walking away from the foreign currency kiosk at the supermarket - he was chatting to his buddy and didn’t notice he dropped a fat wad of Euro notes - probably a few hundred Euro at least. I picked it up and ran after him and handed it back. I guess that probably doesn’t really count.

I found $80 in a wallet once but I was the kind of sap that returned it.

Several years ago, I was at the Subway down the road, and as I was putting my change back into my wallet, I saw a $100 bill on the floor. I handed it to the cashier and said, “This was on the floor, and it’s not mine.” She put it under the register, and as I was filling my soda, a woman tapped my arm and said, “Thank you so much for turning in that money!” and offered me a reward. I said, “No, it was no big deal. It was on the floor, and it wasn’t mine.”

:slight_smile:

One night I was working and stepped out to the alley to have a smoke. It was a particularly windy evening. As dog is my witness a crisp $100 flew by me and i simply snatched it out of the air. Nobody was around, I kept it; a true windfall!

$100 bill. Back in the early 1980s, when that amount meant more.

When I worked in an auto plant, I was a janitor for a few years. In that time, I found 4 wallets in restrooms, and some rings. I managed to track down the owners, and I gave them back, without accepting any reward. One woman who got her ring back insisted on a reward, but I talked her into giving it to her favorite charity. On the other hand, I found a $20 bill and kept it. One day I was assigned to sweeping all the break areas in the plant. I swept $23 in coins from under the vending machines, and I kept that. Other janitors didn’t like to sweep under the machines, ignoring the extra pay under there.