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Axemusica's avatar

What would you do if you found a large sum of money? please view more...?

Asked by Axemusica (9500points) January 19th, 2010

Now everyone has probably heard the age old question, “what would you do if you found X amount of money?” Some would say report the lost whatever to the authorities, but, what if wasn’t really a huge sum?

If you found a sum of money that was just enough to pay off all your debt (e.g. credit cards, mortgage, car payments, ect..)? I don’t mean money out the wazoo, like being able to afford anything your heart desires. I mean just enough to remove most of the stress of your life and then continue living it as though you never found the money and your stress of your debts just magically disappeared.

Would you use the money for this? Would you report it and continue on stressing about your debts? ...and if you don’t have much debt, would you rather help a close member of your circle with their debts?

Keep in mind this is just a low amount like.. I dunno $5,000 USD or lets say my debt which isn’t so bad roughly about $2,000+ maybe -.

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42 Answers

chyna's avatar

I’d have to try to find the owner. The money would be that much sweeter to spend if you had it clear and free if the owner couldn’t be found.

lilikoi's avatar

Finders keepers, eh?

lilikoi's avatar

Nah seriously, I would look around and see if anyone was obviously missing it. If not, I might keep it. I wouldn’t use it to pay off debt; I would invest.

SeventhSense's avatar

I’d have to determine where it came from or I couldn’t sleep. Now if all possibilities were exhausted then I’d use it at will and sleep with a clear conscience.

smashbox's avatar

If it had no ID connected with it, then I would probably throw all my morals and values that I have out the window, and keep it.

My luck, I would find out who it belonged to after I had spent it, and then have guilt on my conscience for the rest of my life, for keeping it. So, would I really be stress free, maybe debt wise I would, but conscience wise, I wouldn’t.

I guess that is the price I would pay for being a thief, and not doing what is right. But, to be completely honest, I would probably keep it, if it had no ID.

I would definetly use it to pay off my debts.

I’ve taken pens and paper clips from the office, so I guess I would just add a bag of money to my list of sins/crimes too.

faye's avatar

Am I finding it in a brown paper bag? Mine

SeventhSense's avatar

@smashbox
I’ve taken pens and paper clips from the office, so I guess I would just add a bag of money to my list…
Don’t mention this at an interview. :)

smashbox's avatar

@SeventhSense, hee, hee, I shall do just that.

dpworkin's avatar

A drug dealer would kill you over 2 Grand. Better to find out whose money you are stealing before you steal it.

augustlan's avatar

I would have to try to find the owner. My conscience wouldn’t allow me to do otherwise. What may be a little boon to me may be their life savings, or the money set aside for a wedding, or the money needed for life-saving health care.

Dr_Lawrence's avatar

I’ve with @augustlan and @SeventhSense. I’d have to return it to an identifiable owner.
Once satisfied that this was not possible, I would invest it carefully so that The capital was always secure. I would reinvest the interest to grow the asset further.

borderline_blonde's avatar

I’d try to find out who it belonged to… otherwise I’d spend the rest of my life wondering if I’d just taken little Bobby’s heart surgery money.

SeventhSense's avatar

@Dr_Lawrence
You’re thriftier than I.
I would have that intention but would probably just blow it on cheese doodles.
maybe a case of Dr. Pepper too

CaptainHarley's avatar

If I found just enough to pay off my debts, it wouldn’t be worth bothering with! : D

SeventhSense's avatar

Yes…what about the rest of the 80–90,000? At least the cheese doodles would make me forget for an hour or two until I slipped into a carbohydrate coma watching South Park..

chyna's avatar

@CaptainHarley It would be a large sum of money if it was enough to pay off my debts, unfortunately.

@SeventhSense Cheese doodles are bad for you.

jeffgoldblumsprivatefacilities's avatar

Apparently I have a shitty conscience, I wouldn’t feel guilty for a second about keeping it.

Axemusica's avatar

@chyna not if he didn’t have a lot of debt compared to majority of americans. ~edit~ oh just saw it said “your” debts. His debts are probably much lower.

SeventhSense's avatar

@chyna
OK
Ho Hos
I could get at least two for a couple grand.

filmfann's avatar

When I was a teen, I found a bag with over $1000, and a gun.
Only touching the bag, I made a guess at who the owner was. I went to his house, and rang his bell. He answered, and I asked him if he owned a gun. “No! Absolutely not!”
I shrugged and said okay. I then let him get a glance at the bag I was holding, and he screamed. He had dropped it on the way from his car, coming home from the store where he worked.

chyna's avatar

@SeventhSense You are so bad.

Axemusica's avatar

@filmfann uh… I think I speak for everyone when I say, can you please finish the story? lol

filmfann's avatar

@Axemusica He claimed it, knew there was money in the bag, and I gave it back.
I didn’t get or want a reward.

Axemusica's avatar

@filmfann that’s it? You didn’t report him? obviously something shady is going down with a bag full of money with a gun in it, especially if he denied owning a gun first hand. There’s got to be more to it….

SeventhSense's avatar

@Axemusica
You pick your battles.

deni's avatar

if there was no name on it i’d keep it and if it was, say, 3000 dollars, i would take a nice little trip to rome or something with my boyfriend then go on living as usual. neither of us have any debt to pay off, but i dont have much spare money, and while i know it would be better to save, i’m all about the moment and 3000 dollars could let me go somewhere really cool and i wouldnt be able to pass it up.

wildpotato's avatar

I don’t have much debt, so it would depend on how flush I was at the moment, honestly.

@pdworkin I have known many drug dealers, some very well. Your statement is not widely applicable. There are loads of suburbanite kids who deal in amounts upwards of 2k regularly – and they’re just out to sell weed, mostly. They don’t kill each other. I know of the other type, too, of course – I just mean, if I found a brown paper sack with 2 grand in it in my parents’ suburb, I’d be fairly sure that no one was gonna come after me.

mollypop51797's avatar

well, the right answer is finding the owner. The wrong answer is taking it. I would be a little of both. At first, I would find the money, and look around and see if anyone had lost it or “dropped” it. Then, maybe if I hadn’t done any of that, I would have felt guilty. Maybe I would just give it to someone else. Eventually, if after I looked, i would take it. Then just sleep it off. Now, the next question is what am I exactly planning on doing with the money? Hmmmm

Cruiser's avatar

I once found $10,000 in $100.00 bills hidden inb the drop ceiling of an office I was renovating. HS!! $10,000.00 I reported it to the building mgr who said it was mine if no one claimed it in 6 mos.

6 mos goes by and yippee the money was mine. Bought some new hiking shoes, went out to dinner… threw all the money in the air like in the movies…then a major OH OH!!

I noticed 2 serial numbers were the same on a couple bills then I found more that matched….HS!!!! It was counterfeit!!! Fast forward 2 years and there is a knock at my front door and the US Marshall’s wanted to speak to me….DOWNTOWN!!

$2,500 of my own REAL money and a good white collar crime lawyer I left downtown 6 hours later with a major promise to never ever do something so crazy ever again!!!

Axemusica's avatar

note to self: If I do find money, make sure they all have different serial numbers.

@Cruiser well if you think about it, it’s kind of like winning the lottery twice, lol. Also, they must have been good counterfeits?

Austinlad's avatar

Go ahead, laugh, but I’ve never forgotten an episode called “Opie’s Fortune” on the Andy Griffith show.

Opie finds a wallet containing $50, and Andy tells him if no one claims it within a week, he can keep the money. But Opie wants toys and can’t wait that long, so he begins spending his own allowance in advance of getting the money. The owner of the wallet, a poor farmer, shows up at the courthouse when Andy is out, leaving Opie to make a crucial decision, one which is misinterpreted by the conclusion-jumping Andy. Originally telecast on November 16, 1964.

Dr_Lawrence's avatar

@SeventhSense As a disabled person, a bag of real money would be really important to me, but not as important as making sure my windfall was not at the expense of someone I could easily identify. I have to live with myself!

DrBill's avatar

Enough to pay off debts, not likely to find $1M.

I would turn it in, no matter how much it is.

SeventhSense's avatar

@Dr_Lawrence
Exactly. I agree as I posted.

CaptainHarley's avatar

@chyna

I use to have the same problem, then my wife divorced me. : )

Nullo's avatar

Turn it in. I’d be no worse off than I was before, and I wouldn’t have the burden on my conscience to deal with.

chyna's avatar

@CaptainHarley Actually, if I didn’t have a house, I wouldn’t have debt.

faye's avatar

I’d like to use it to cut down on kids’ student loans, I wouldn’t expect any non-criminal acivities to be using brown bags or envelopes.

Cruiser's avatar

@Axemusica They fooled me! The US Marshalls didn’t think so. It turned out they were from an Iranian Drug Cartel that was flooding the US with them and laundering them through vending machine operations. The only amusing part of it was the fact that apparently the FBI Raided this vending machine business that rented the unit I was remodeling and the agents supposedly searched that place top to bottom and was a major embarrassment to them that they missed that huge wad of money up in the ceiling.

filmfann's avatar

@Axemusica there is nothing more to it. Nothing nefarious going on. He owned a grocery store, and had a gun on prem to protect himself. At night, he brought the money and the gun home so they weren’t left in the store.

CaptainHarley's avatar

@chyna

That’s understandable. I’ve been there before. Right now, we rent, but we’re rebuilding a home the way we want it, and since my wife’s mother gave it to us, we can spend more money fixing it up.

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