To ask if you’ve ever come across money you’d completely forgotten about?

[BusyPearlCritic]

Have you ever come across some money you’d completely forgotten about or neglected? I actually found an account last year which I thought I had closed - it had £35k in it!!

@singthing
About £500 spread across a couple of cashback accounts, which accumulates as I continue to use the sites

That's risky, if those sites fold you'll lose the money because it isn't protected in the same was as a bank account. You'd be better off withdrawing it and putting it into one of your random accounts or if it's too cashback converting it into gift vouchers for adds or somewhere and using it for food shopping (with a nice bonus as well)

This

After my Dad died, I found about $1,000 in US travellers’ cheques. It was a bit of a faff getting Amex to pay across the value (I had to write “VOID” across them all, email the scanned copy of them and post them) but I was glad I did.

https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/banknotes/exchanging-old-banknotes

It says here you can even change them at the post office… 😬

I once found an account I'd forgotten about with about £200 in it.

A friend was dodging calls from her old bank a good few years back as she had a fair bit of credit card debt with them and assumed they were ringing about that - turned out they were trying to get hold of her about a savings account maturing with over £50k in it. She was pretty scatty though!

£50 in a chest of drawers I was emptying out to move.
I was pretty chuffed with that.
£35k would be MUCH better!

I wish!

I smell bull shit 😊

Mum discovered a pension shed forgotten about. Worrying as she was a retired accountant.

I forgot the 40 pounds I found on a shelf in the cloakroom where my husbands jacket had been hanging.

Also the 50 rial note I found in the pocket of a handbag. Both were found at a time when the amounts mage me feel as if I’d found a million.

I sometimes come across cheques that I’ve forgotten to pay in and left too late eg refund when changing suppliers but they’ve never been above £50. Also gift cards that I’ve forgotten to use.

The story of the elderly person hiding money which is now out of tender is quite shocking. I bet this has happened with quite a few elderly people. I’m surprised that banks don’t let you change it.

I left some Euros €240 left over from my holidays in a suitcase and forgot about it. The following year I had a nice surprise when I found it.

I tend to save my euros in a separate purse for my next holiday - and the amount is often a nice surprise (ie a couple of hundred euros).

Indeed. The failsafe option is to take it and present it at the Bank of England in Threadneedle Street, London. There's also an option to post it securely.

Bank of England Counter
Threadneedle Street
London
EC2R 8AH

I hope no-one else is chucking good money away.

The Bank of England does let you exchange it.

Yes, it's happened a few times. I found a haul of ten pound notes in a tea chest when I was packing up to move house after 11 years. Then a few years ago my sister pointed out that a bundle of notes that I had, were soon to be discontinued. The latest was a couple of weeks ago when I found three old fivers in a book I hadn't looked at for donkeys' years. They were blue, with the Duke of Wellington on the back and signed by the Chief Cashier for 1970 to 1980!

I recently found an envelope with a couple of hundred pounds my mil gave me a few years ago. She recently died and I've been wondering what i should spend it on. It feels like it should be somethingvto remember her by.

It's TopCashback and Quidco, so it's not likely, but you are right. I keep telling myself I'll sort it after the next lot of "pending" clears to save having little dribs and drabs.

My dad was terrible for leaving loose change all around the house. I gathered it up for him one day and counted it, there was over £100. So not quite forgotten about, but it was a pleasant surprise for him as he didn't think it would be as much as that.

Yes, not proud but completely forgot about a savings plan until I got a letter a few years ago. It had a good few thousand in it, very much needed at the time I found it.

At the start of Covid, I (as a dedicated reader of apocalyptic/dystopian sci-fi) knew that cash is king when societies begin to collapse, so got out a few hundred pounds and slid it in the back of my bedside drawer. Of course, what happened was, everywhere went cash free. My foresight was pretty useless. Over the lockdown, I forgot about the money, and only found it a year or so later. ‘Twas a nice surprise, anyway.

Just before I got married (26 years ago), my purse vanished after a trip to a coffee shop. I never carried much cash, so I cancelled all my cards, and forgot about it. A few weeks later a got a phone call. The man on the other end asked if I was Matilda TSDL. Yes, I said… waiting for the scam. He’d got my number from my organ donation card. Turned out he’d got home from a trip to the shops, and found my purse in his bag. He spoke to the bank my card was from who told him there was nothing they could about the purse, but they would get into contact with me. He waited. And waited. And eventually called the number on the transplant card. Turned out that there was a couple of hundred pounds in the purse which I’d taken out for various wedding expenses, and forgotten about. More importantly, the purse had been a gift from DH so had sentimental value. I still have the purse. Money long since spent!

I stumbled across a pound coin in my bag last night. Must’ve put it there for a supermarket trolley.

There are good, honest people!

I, too, did the Covid cash withdrawal. And didn’t spend the cash. After all the lockdowns etc were over and life was more-or-less back to normal, dh and I decided that the money had effectively been spent a couple of years earlier. It was therefore outside our budgeting. So it became our little treats windfall.

Found €500,0000 in an post office account I'd forgotten about. Got myself a nice coffee.

Oh wait, no, it was a giver in a jacket pocket. The half a mil was a dream 😂.

Most annoying was I found £40 (two twenties). I don't go to the UK that much and combined with the fact there NI notes, which outside of NI people at best look suspiciously at and at worse refuse to accept, it took an age to try use it. Apparently they are out of circulation.

DH recently found a pension he’d forgotten about that has done quite well, that was cool. My favourite money find though was leaving Reading Festival to get the train home, aged I think 17, knew I’d missed the last one and would be in the station until like 5am, I was cold already, found £10 (maybe £20) on the floor, bought a jumper, didn’t get hyperthermia.