Return it only because it was a fellow human’s mistake. If a machine had given me an extra 50$… Eff that Toaster!
This kind of thing has happened to me too many times. I’ve tried to correct the change from a sale once and the cashier couldn’t understand she gave me too much and kept trying to give me more.
But in this case, I’d take it back. But I would make sure to speak to a manager and get some written confirmation that the money was accepted by the business, and not pocketed by someone.
I think this phrasing mirros my feelings the most accurately. It really can’t be called “theft” because the OP had no intention of taking the money and wasn’t in any way trying to rip the place off. No way in hell would you get the money returned to you if the situation was reversed, either - they’d tell you to your face that you should’ve counted it.
I would also think that, depending on their store security policies, returning the money would call attention to either the mistake itself, or the identity of the cashier responsible.
This.
I have a feeling that manager never advanced in their career. Or kept it… 
The OP was putting it on RATHER thick. Oh, poor me. I barely afford gas for my car. I’m so poor. It just really annoyed me. Times are tough. Tougher for more people than it is for the OP who has the nerve to whine about how poor they are and they talk about the hiking trip they just took. Last time I checked, POOR people (Poor was the OP’s wording not mine) don’t go on trips. As another poster pointed out, POOR people don’t accumulate over a hundred dollars in loose change. Poor people don’t have loose change. That’s their money to live on. It just really annoys me. Don’t call yourself poor when you’re not. Because the OP is so poor we’re supposed to feel amazed they gave back money that didn’t belong to them. I just can’t imagine if the shoe was on the other foot, the OP would write I’m really rich and you should be amazed I didn’t keep 50 bucks that didn’t belong to me.
I’d probably return it, but not because I cared about the cashier getting in trouble. They messed up. They deserve to get in trouble. It’s not like I was running a con game or anything.
No, I return it because it’s the right thing to do. And even that’s a newfound ethical consideration: previously I was taught that, if the error comes out in your favor, you are not supposed to correct it. I blame the teachers who refused to give you a lower grade if you caught a mistake. I thought everyone thought that way, and was how I conducted myself.
If I caught the error, I would give it back.
The chances of me catching the error? Not high. I’m really sloppy with cash and never know how much I have on me. I don’t carry cash for this reason.
I would return the money.
I was undercharged significantly for a product at a small store a couple months ago. They rang in the last four numbers of my card number (with the decimal point in the middle) instead of the amount. So it ended up being around $16 something rather than $50 something. I noticed as I was driving away (luckily I happened to look at the receipt, as they often just get crushed in my pocket and go through the washing machine) and went in to rectify it. They were very surprised. I felt much better after fixing the problem, so, to me, it was the right decision.
As a person who handles money daily (library work, taking fines, etc), I try to be careful, and would definitely appreciate someone noticing a discrepancy either way, although my job would probably not be on the line in that case.
… We are? Seriously? You seem to misunderstand the obvious intent of the OP, which was provoking a discussion of why we behave morally (or altruistically) even when it hurts us in some objective way. The entire portion of the OP devoted to a supposed pity party is in fact much smaller than your post of complaint:
That reads like nothing more than a flat description of his situation; if he wanted pity he could have been far more eager about it.
…
For what it’s worth, I probably wouldn’t have given the $50 back unless it occurred to me that the cashier may be fired for it. Eh, the wheels of the universe turn, in the long run we’re all dead, &c.
A few years ago, I bought a set of trash bags for $20 or so…
<my city doesn’t charge us a flat fee for trash pick-up. We pay for bags, and they pick them up for ‘free’.>
The cashier forgot to charge me for them. I noticed after I got home.
The next time I was in the grocery story, I stopped by the service desk with my receipt, and pointed out the mistake. The person helping me accepted my money, and asked me to wait a minute…went in the back…and returned with a store coupon for a free ice cream as a thank you for being honest. Apparently, people don’t come back to point out that they were undercharged very often…
I’d like to think I’d do the same thing if I was hurting for money…but it’s hard to say.
-D/a
I once found $400 in cash, in a little change purse, walking home from my job. All the way home I wondered what I would do. I went to see my now husband who was still working, his response was, “I’m not going to tell you what you should do, as I’m sure you know what the right thing is!”
I called the police, who took hours to come collect it (and I’d found it at midnight!). The officer who came and took the details admitted he didn’t know what he’d do if he found cash in the street.
When I told my fellow bar employees, next day, the general consensus was that I was a chump!
The only other thing in the purse was a seniors bus ticket, plus I had earlier, this same day, deposited almost this exact amount, to cover my monthly bills. I couldn’t help but think of some senior citizen with no deposit to make for their monthly expenses. I knew I could never keep it.
I was reminded of this by the people referencing that they’d return it thinking they’d save the cashier her job, but not if they found cash on the street.
I took a fair bit of teasing and grief over being such a chump, but I slept well every night.
Before long I was hearing, every now and again, ‘I’m only saying/doing/telling you this because I know I can trust you.’ Life’s funny.
Exactly.
On a couple of occasions, after I’ve arrived home from the supermarket, I realize I forgot to take the $50 cash back that I charged on my credit card. I’ve gone back for it (just over a mile). I’ve had smaller errors in my favor elsewhere and returned the money.
Yes, having been a cashier, I know what it’s like for your drawer to be short.
I might return it, but I might be too lazy to. Maybe another day I’d bring it back. 
Flipside is, once you’ve left the store, had they given you $50 too little you’d be shit out of luck.
I’d keep the money and return often, figuring that particular cashier was prone to making change-making errors in my favor. Perhaps, I’d even engage in some attention-diverting schemes in an effort to increase my odds of a win. However, if she ever made an error in the stores favor, I’d be quite obnoxious in demanding immediate compensation over and above the actual monetary loss (e.g. Where’s the manager, I demand my money…and a free pack of Twinkies, you hoodwinker!).
…Kidding. Actually, I’d return the money for a variety of reasons, the primary one being that, by not doing so, I’d feel disingenuous to my kids, expecting them to adhere to a moral code that I, their father, did not.
Something similar happened to me back in Texas. A teller gave me an extra $100, and I did not realize it until later that day. I called the bank and said I may have gotten an extra $100, they called me back after doing a check of the teller I’d used and confirmed it. And this was back when $100 was really $100. When I took the money back, I received an extremely heartfelt “Thank you” from the teller, who said it would have been taken out of her pay if I’d not said anything. The high I got off of that good deed was a bargain at a hundred bucks, I’ll tell ya.
Do you understand what the cost is to go on a hike?
I would have returned it. I once had a bank teller give me an extra $100 in error and I corrected her. It was funny. I realized how she made the mistake later ( she had broken a hundred for me and forgot to put the hundred away and counted it with my deposit ).
When she told me the amount of my deposit and asked how that sounded I said ’ it sounds like it’s too much.’
Taking money from an honest mistake is something I don’t do and yeah, often the cashier pays out of their own pocket.
Yes, and I understand you can’t afford them if you’re really poor. I also understand “poor” people don’t have vast amounts of loose change. The economy is bad and the OP should be glad things aren’t worse for them.