Unusual ways you have gained money?

[dyna]

Once had a cashier at Mc Donalds insist that I'd already paid her when I hadn't. Found money folks had dropped maybe 200.00 over the yrs.
Bought a whole big box of toys at an action for pennies sold the old dolls out of the box for a couple hundred.
Bought a baby pod at a thrift store for 1.00 used it thru 3 babies an sold it for 20.00

 

[bobbiwoz]

Digging a hole with my sons on a beach, we found a $5 bill!

 

[smiths02]

When I was in high school, I remember needing $20 to buy a workbook for school. We just didn't have the money. Anyhow, I was looking in the Bible and $20 fell out!

 

[tex1989]

Not unusual but certainly unexpected. My mother left me 22.5 acres of land she inherited from her parents. At some point they had leased the land for oil drilling. So it pays next to nothing in royalties to my grandparents or my parents. Years later they have better technology and drill another well, Jackpot! But beyond that we get notices all the time saying they want to do seismic testing, lay a temporary pipe for water, lay a gas pipe, etc. Every time they do they pay you. My wife calls it mailbox money as in you go open the mailbox and there's money in there. Now if you understand how royalties work you get 1/6th royalty on you acreage as a percentage of the whole so in my case the lease is 500 acres and I own 22.5 so 1/6th is .166 and 22.5/500 is .045 multiplied together is .00747. or less than 1 percent. Not much right? well I cannot believe how much money that has been over the course of 10 years. More than a few Disney trips!

 

[HeyIt'sMe]

This is a story from my DH's childhood -

Back in the 70's Dick Van Dyke used to do Fire Safety PSAs on TV. My DH remembered one where he said to check couch cushions for cigarette butts. Well, after his grandparents (who lived next door to him) had a party DH went around and checked the couch cushions. He was surprised when he reached between two cushions and found ..... CASH. He kept on checking and found cash between all the cushions - in the couch, love seat, and recliner. He'd struck it rich!

He went home and was circling things he was going to buy in the toy section of the Sears catalog. When his mom asked him what he was doing he showed her the wad of cash and told him where he'd found it. His mom got mad and said the money didn't belong to him - it was cash that belonged to his grandparents who made it a habit of hiding cash all over the house.

 

[Kitty 34]

i won £2 on a tombola

a random man gave me £40 on a train once

Explain the bolded.

 

[ols386]

One time I was getting into my car, and noticed there was a bill on the floor. It was a $50 bill. Granted it was probably my own bill to begin with, but I kept it.

 

[ShayBells]

Haha! We had Dream Phone.

Pretty, Pretty Princess, Mystery Date, and Dream Phone were all GREAT games! Oh to be young again.


Even though it was mine to start I found a bunch of old birthday cards years later that I forgot to take the money out of. That was a good day.

 

[Mirielle]

Out of the clear blue, DH got a check in the mail from a law office in Daytona, FL. Learned he and his brother had a *very distant* uncle who had died, having no wife, children or will. The state had to divide his assets up among all his survivors, which made a very long list. DH and his brother ended up with $9,000 checks. Mighty strange feeling to get money from someone you never knew.

 

[Suprachica79]

Have been lucky with inadvertently flipping vehicles from time to time. Bought a motorcycle for $2500, rode it for 4 years, sold it for $2750. Another motorcycle purchase for $2500, sold for $3500 a year later. Bought a truck for $2500, kept it for a year and a half, sold it for $3000.

 

[ronandannette]

We were completely unprepared for a small inheritance we received in February. DH's sister had passed away unexpectedly around Christmas time after having spent the past 15 years in an extended-care centre. She was quite severely disabled and had never worked or had any income other than government disability. I have absolutely no idea how she would have done it on such meager resources but she had accumulated what amounted to $8,000.00 for each of her 3 surviving siblings. We were humbled and very mindful to share/spend the money in ways that would have pleased her.

 

[cruiser21]

I just got 132.00 dollar check from our water company. They said it was 2 million dollar accounting error.

 

[NHdisneylover]

We have a very new, super effecient furnace system in our building---made by a german company and we are the first residential building to have it.
Last winter I was going to put something in the storeroom and there was the property manager, a rep from that company and about a dozen Chinese bussiness people---they asked if they could come in the apartment to feel the heated floors, see the system in our unit's workroom, etc.
I said sure, why not and found out they are building a huge compley in China and thinking of buying the system.
As they were leaving, everyone insisted on shaking my hand and the last one slipped me a 50 euro bill!

It felt really weird to be on the receiving end of something like that; but 50 euro was nice to have for 10 minutes of people feeling my floor lol At that rate, I sure wish the furnace manufacturer would bring groups on a regular basis all winter!

 

[Klayfish]

I used to work for a 1-900 psychic line....

Really.

 

[Owlpost23]

When I was nine or so I found a ten dollar bill. It was just sitting there neatly folded over the sewer grate like someone deliberately put it there. In 1977 that was a lot of money for a kid, and my Mom said I could keep it all if I shared it with my kid sister. So...off we went to the neighborhood candy/variety store of the type you just don't see anymore. We spent 7 of the dollars on The Bride Game. We played that game until it practically fell apart. You had to go around the board collecting the things you'd need for your chosen wedding style. I was *always* the semi-formal bride because the cake had purple seashells on it and I thought it was so pretty. You'd never see a game like that for girls nowadays. But I digress...the 3 dollars we had left over we bought candy at a time when full-sized Hershey's Bars cost 15 cents. I know we bought lots of 2 cents and penny candy along with the chocolate. My Mom didn't even bat an eye when we came in and started playing the game surrounded by candy. She didn't even make us ration it to last like Halloween candy.

What a windfall! Sounds like you made good use of the money!

 

[Kathryn Merteuil]

My ex husband forgot to remove me as beneficiary from a couple insurance policies before he passed. In fact, that's I found out it had happened, receiving a letter from an insurance company in regards to that. Even like almost a year later, I received another notification of somebody was paying more money. It was kind of awkward.

 

[Kitty 34]

Explain the bolded.

As much as he/she posted a couple of months ago, I thought he'd/she'd get back with me with an answer to my question. Oh well.....if someone else wants to answer, I'm just curious.

 

[OhMari]

I used to buy Silver Jeans when stores would clearance them, especially in May. I would pay like $15. I would put the jeans on EBay with the starting price of $15. I always made $75-$90.

I found $50 in the church parking lot, I really need to give that to the collection basket.

 

[Sabeking]

About six years ago my DH sold his company. We did fairly well but the taxes we paid were off the charts, really! A few years later I was working for DH in a new business we started. I did the accounting and went out of state for a training on the software we used. One of the presenters was a tax accountant. He was telling a story about a client and the taxes he paid when selling a business. After his presentation I began to think about what he said and how it applied to our sale years back. Long story short we had overpaid taxes by about 15 percent. He filed an amendment for us and we received our over payment back plus interest. I never would have guessed the government would have given us the money back.

 

[disney junky]

I inherited money from someone unexpected.