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I can think of a lot of things I would do with $185,000. I’d pay off our debt, save a whole bunch and spend some too. But it has to be earned the honest way.
McDonald’s worker Reggie Damone thinks along those same lines. He found a check for $185,000 on the ground and he returned it to its rightful owner. You can read the whole story at MSN.com (it’s a fairly short article).
I do want to point out something Reggie said that his mom taught him:
If you take something, you lose three times that amount —and if you do something good, something good comes back to you.
I like that a lot.
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Posted: January 3rd, 2008 at 12:34 pm
While (as a devout Buddhist) I know there’s no such thing as “good” or “bad” karma, that’s surely not going to hurt.
-
Ryan
http://uncommon-cents.net/
Posted: January 3rd, 2008 at 1:29 pm
Law of Attraction
Posted: January 3rd, 2008 at 1:37 pm
I’m not a believer in the law of attraction. I was reading a blog the other day from last year where a guy read the Law of Attraction and really believed in it. After ever post, he’d put his statement of affirmation about his desire to be worth a million dollars at the end of the year. At the end of the year, he ended up with a bankruptcy and living with his mom.
It’s like saying if you believe in something enough, it will come true, but if you doubt just a little, that’s why it didn’t come true.
Posted: January 3rd, 2008 at 1:38 pm
I’d probably hold on to the check for about a week before I’d finally let myself turn it in. I think I’d just need to mull it over that it’s not my money and I’ll just have to wait to make my own $185,000.
Posted: January 3rd, 2008 at 1:45 pm
That’s a ton of money. But, could he have done anything with it. After all wasn’t it written out to someone else?
Now if I’d found the cash it would require some prayer.
Posted: January 3rd, 2008 at 2:14 pm
There was NOTHING the guy could have done with the check. It was a check. If he had cashed it, he would have been arrested and put in jail because a check is prima facia evidence.
I think each and every one of us, if we had found the check, would have turned it in.
Now, if it were cash, that is a whole different ball game. That’s where the true test of the person would come into.
Posted: January 3rd, 2008 at 3:39 pm
I have to agree with boomer on this one - if that was a bag with $185,000 in $20’s that might never have returned to its owner.
Either way it was a nice gesture.
Posted: January 3rd, 2008 at 4:12 pm
If I were the mother of this young man I would be extremely proud of him. Regardless of what he could have done with the cheque or cash, he did the right thing and returned it. Debating whether it would have been returned if it were money he found is pointless. He returned, to the rightful owner something that was lost. Kudos to him.
Posted: January 3rd, 2008 at 4:45 pm
The check isn’t worth anything since it has to clear from the payee’s account. I don’t think he wants to have that kind of money anyways because he would lose his government issued food stamps and most likely low cost subsidized housing. If he had tried to cash the check, that’s fraud and would really limit his options in life behind bars. I find it ironic he mentioned his mom taught him not to take things yet everyone’s tax dollars are feeding him.
Posted: January 3rd, 2008 at 5:24 pm
Well, aside from the moral implications, there’s also the technicality of trying to deposit a check made out to someone else. There’s also a paper trail that he wouldn’t be able to readily hide. Now, a bag on plain old unmarked, non-sequential $100 dollar bills on the other hand…. well, I’m just saying.
-Raymond
Posted: January 3rd, 2008 at 7:11 pm
Give it back. I mean, I can’t really imagine keeping it if I knew who it belonged to (random cash with no owner, I might put up a “found money” sign without the amount).
I’d pay off our debt and put it all in retirement accounts and then we’d be soo happy!
Posted: January 3rd, 2008 at 8:27 pm
Well, he not only returned it, he hopped on the bus and personally handed it to the rightful owner. I can’t speak for all the cynics on here
, but that means something to me! I’d probably have just shredded it.
Posted: January 3rd, 2008 at 9:06 pm
Reggie is not wealthy with money, but he is wealthy in spirit. This will come back to him a million times over.
Posted: January 4th, 2008 at 1:38 am
I can hardly imagine how frantic I’d be if I lost a check of that size, so even though he probably couldn’t have cashed the check, it was really nice of him to take the trouble to return the check. But it is nice to fantasize about how I’d spend that much found money–paying off debt, adding another bedroom to my house, sticking a whole lot of it in my retirement fund, and buying one–just one!–eye-poppingly good bottle of champagne to celebrate with a few friends!
Posted: January 4th, 2008 at 9:56 am
This guy Reggie is a good and thoughtful person. Kudos to him. The implication that he could have “kept” the money is kind of silly, however, he certainly didn’t need to return the check, especially in person. It was a very kind gesture.
Jim, I think you should read “Nickel and Dimed”. It’s a great book (also available on audio) about living below poverty level (often with one+ full time jobs) in America. I really doubt that Reggie (or many others, for that matter) choose to need food stamps. I learned a lot about how nearly impossible it is to get out of poverty. It certainly gave me an education and a good dose of compassion and humility (both of which were apparently needed). BTW, it’s written by a successful PhD/writer/journalist who merely took her job and post-grad status off her resume (entering the workforce as a college educated, divorced mid-50’s woman who had been a homemaker while her children grew up). Guess what? She, with everything she had going for her (education, intelligence, etc.) needed food assistance to get by. This while working 7 full days a week. I don’t know about you, but I think that’s really humbling.
Posted: January 4th, 2008 at 10:45 am
I agree with many of the others if it was cash it may of been a different story. It certainly would have been a harder decision.
However, if someone gave me $185,000 I would pay off all of my remaining debts, fund my emergency fund, book my first ever trip to New York.
I would also pay for the new guttering that I need. My current guttering is broken in several spots. There is one spot in particular that leaks so bad that ice forms on the sidewalk so thick, you almost need a bag of ice melt on the sidewalk in that one spot every month.
Posted: January 4th, 2008 at 11:24 am
Bravo, Jaye– thanks for setting Jim straight!
Posted: January 4th, 2008 at 2:24 pm
Don’t think reports clarified what type of check it was. The fifty dollar reward, however, sounded a little cheap. Five hundred or at least one hundred would have made for a better story. It was excellent that he returned the check as check laundering is rampant.