
‘What’s the oddest way you’ve come into money?’ – 23 strange financial flukes that you’ll be wishing would happen to you
There can’t be anyone who hasn’t had an idle daydream about being left a huge amount of money by a mysterious relative that we never knew we had.
And for good reason, because it actually genuinely does happen to some people. They’ve been discussing this on the AskUK subreddit after user Cute_Lavishness_4934 posed the following question, along with an example of their own stroke of financial luck:
‘What’s the oddest way you’ve come into money? Just curious about the weird ways we sometimes come into a bit of cash! I’ll start – found £50 in a library book that had been sitting on my shelf for three years. Checked the date on the note and it was from after I’d borrowed the book, so someone else must have used it as a bookmark and forgotten.
‘What’s your story of unexpected money appearing in strange ways?
And people added their pennyworth of good fortune that we’re definitely not envious of at all.
1.
‘A wealthy cousin randomly deposited several thousand into my bank for a milestone birthday. He’d got my bank details from a parent who had transferred me money before. It was quite a surprise seeing my bank balance that day. I paid off my debts, fixed my car, and bought an iPad.’
–20127010603170562316
2.
‘I was swimming in the sea at one of Bournemouths beaches when I was around 10 and found £20 on the sea bed. Dried it out under a tennis racket and spent it at Toys R Us, absolutely fantastic find!’
–squashedfrog92
3.
‘I had the same thing at Felixstowe when I was about 8 or 9, first I found £20 just on the ground by the tideline. Then my mum came back from a swim with another £20 note, before my grandparents spotted a tenner floating around so she went back to grab it. Eventually blew it at the car boot.’
–Roadkillgoblin_2
4.
‘When we opened a chippy two of our business neighbours came in separately and gave us a fiver each as it’s apparently good luck to give money to a startup in their religion (as a gift-not to purchase anything). We still have the notes in a frame, the business was sold as a successful startup.’
–b_of_the_bang_
5.
‘The cashpoint gave me twice the amount I’d asked for. I took the excess—and the mendacious receipt—into the bank and explained the problem. Two weeks later I got a cheque for more than I’d returned, as a thank you.’
–YourLittleRuth
6.
‘In 2007 or thereabouts I moved house. As soon as we (me and missus) got in we started cleaning. I was doing on top of the high-level kitchen cupboards. Found an envelope, a bit grotty looking, it had clearly been there for a while. I put it down on the worktop. Missus asks ‘What’s in the envelope?’, I say ‘Don’t know’.
‘She opened it, found £150 in crisp new tenners.’
–Allen_Socket
7.
‘I found four brand new £20 notes a couple of years ago in the expansion port of a second hand GameCube I bought from eBay, proper random as shit they were really neatly folded inside. I think I only paid something like £70 for it so not a bad find!’
–GuybrushFunkwood
8.
‘I don’t know. 6th form prom and I took £50 cash out with me. I got absolutely hammered. It was a good night.
‘The next day I checked my wallet and I had £60. I didn’t get any cash out of a machine (checked my bank balance) and to this day I have no idea where the money came from.’
–Dolgar01
9.
‘I pressed ‘stop’ on the bus and the driver ignored me and stopped at the next stop instead, on my 20 minute walk back to where I was supposed to be dropped off I found £20.’
–TrumpsAKrunt
10.
‘Not exceptionally interesting – however! Cooperative sent me a letter that my Britannia ISA was moving over to them. Had no idea that I even had one. Had moved home multiple times since it was set up as well so not sure how they knew where I was. Had £400 in!’
–player_zero_
11.
‘I once sat down on a kerb to tie my laces, and a well put together older lady gave me a £10 note. I was on lunch break at college and used it to buy lunch.’
–Ulfgeirr88
12.
‘I was sent a cheque for £1000 for my university. No letter with it, I hadn’t applied for anything, contacted the university and they didn’t know what it was for either.’
–Hunter037