Along with the theme song to Dallas, that verse was one I learned as a child. It was as common as needing new tennis shoes (we called them “sneakers”) right when paycheck money ran out.
My daughter asked me recently if she should pick up a tails down penny or if that was bad luck. I learned Find a penny, pick it up. All day long, you have good luck! Heads down or tails up, didn’t matter. Grab that penny! You find anything of value, it’s yours, darling. Including money…penny or otherwise.
I accepted this idea most of my adult life. Because I also learned: you snooze, you lose. The early bird gets the word. First come, first served. But at some point in the past few years, it occurred to me to wonder if found money is actually my money. Finders, Keepers! Losers, Weepers popped into my head. But I kept thinking.
Found money. photo credit: me.
“My” money is money that I earn - whether through labor or as remuneration for an object that I sold - or am given (much rarer). “My” money also includes money that is part of our household grouping of assets. But money I find on the street? I had done nothing for it. I didn’t “deserve” it. It wasn’t compensation. In other words, found money no longer fit my ideas about what defined “my” money.
Now when I find money, I give it away.
I found a crumpled ten dollar bill on the street about a month before we left. I decided to break that up into two fives and give that away to two different people. Two fives felt like it was going further somehow that way. (Math has never been my strong point.) I didn’t see the unhoused older man I’m familiar with, Keith, at his spot on W Markham and Broad so instead I gave one of the fives to a woman near Costco and another to a woman near the Dunkin on Hillsborugh Rd.
What do you think? Finders, Keepers, Losers, Weepers? Is found money, your money?
There was a time when I had little money and someone stole $40 from my purse at work just before a beach trip I had planned. It meant I had less money to do the things I wanted while on vacation. On the second day of my trip, while walking along the beach, I found 2 twenty dollar bills blowing along the beach. I looked around but no one was anywhere near that may have dropped them. I took it as my money returned to me by the universe. Then I went and got my belly button pierced for $40. 😁
There was a time when I had little money and someone stole $40 from my purse at work just before a beach trip I had planned. It meant I had less money to do the things I wanted while on vacation. On the second day of my trip, while walking along the beach, I found 2 twenty dollar bills blowing along the beach. I looked around but no one was anywhere near that may have dropped them. I took it as my money returned to me by the universe. Then I went and got my belly button pierced for $40. 😁
How serendipitous, Ursula! The finding of that $40 was meant to be. Thank you for sharing this delightfuyl story.