Do You Always Keep the Money You Find?

[tags]General,,[/tags]

I am pretty short so I am close to the ground, and oftentimes I spot a coin or two and keep it. However, there are times when we find larger sums of money laying on the ground. What do you do then? Here are some of my stories and general rules.

When I find wallets and purses I always try to find identification in them and call the owner. I always return this kind of found money because I have lost a purse once and it was a pain in the butt to replace every identification and credit card in it. I think it is just common courtesy to try to return purses and wallets.

When I find small amounts of cash on the ground with no identification. I generally keep it. The largest bill I found was $100, and I kept it because there was no way to tell who lost it on the street. I do pick up pennies when I see them because coins really add up. Of course, since I drive now I pick up a lot less coins. I think finding coins is another reason why I love public transportation .

However, I would definitely try to find the owner of a larger sum of money with no identification. One of my relatives actually found an envelope with over a thousand dollars in a shopping line. She posted flyers at the store with her phone number and noone came to claim the money. Most police departments and cities have ordinances that say if noone comes to claim lost property after the finder tries to find the owner for a certain number of days then the finder may keep the found property. So my relative kept that money, and now every time she goes into that store she stands what she calls her "lucky shopping line". It is sort of sad because that is someone's "unlucky shopping line". If I do find a very large sum of money, I would probably do what I can to find the owner.

I also think that it is a bad idea to keep an extremely large sum of money without identification. Chances are it came from some unscrupulous source that could hunt you down. So how about you? Do you always keep money you find?

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