Crazy Places People Hide Money

“People hide money all the time. The hard part is knowing if or where your loved one has hidden money when they die.  A well thought out hiding place is rarely communicated… to anyone… And so, when someone dies, it is not uncommon when cleaning out desk drawers, sifting through piles of clothes stuffed in a bureau, or sorting through the multitude of boxes stored in the attic or basement, that you might come across some hidden treasures.

Today’s news in the Boston Globe really caught my attention.  A middle aged couple, strolling along on their daily walk on some rural property in Northern California as they have repeatedly done for years,  discovered, by pure chance,  $10,000,000 worth of mint-condition” gold coins buried at the edge of a tree. They had, most likely, passed by that tree many times before. Talk about finding a pot of gold! And not even at the end of a beautiful rainbow!  Since the gold coins are dated in the 1800’s, they had clearly been buried there for quite some time, and quite purposefully too. “Finders Keepers” is what I imagine they are now shouting all the way to the bank. Here’s another story. Rabbi Noah Muroff purchased a desk listed this past fall on Craigslist.  Because he had difficulty fitting the desk into his office, he was left with the task of dismantling the desk. Lo and behold; Noah found a bag full of $100 dollar bills.  There was $98,000 of cash in that bag. Noah, being the good person that he is, contacted the seller who had apparently stashed this money (which was all of her inheritance) in the desk but it had fallen behind the desk filing drawer and gotten stuck somehow. She forgot about it and assumed that the money was somewhere else in her house when she decided to sell the desk.  She is so lucky to have sold that desk to Noah.  Others might have yelled “Finders Keepers”. Here is a list of the top crazy places where people hide cash:

  • In a feminine hygiene box
  • Inside a toilet paper roll
  • In a cookie jar
  • In a fake drain or pipe or vent
  • In the dirty clothes hamper
  • In the vase of a fake plant
  • Inside picture frames or taped on the back of paintings
  • In a vacuum cleaner
  • Inside an empty box of frozen food, in the freezer
  • Inside old shoes or sneakers
  • In the kitty litter box
  • Inside a stuffed animal
  • In a mason jar buried in a garden
  • Inside curtain rods
  • Inside the Christmas decoration box
  • Inside a gutted book on your bookshelf
  • Inside a foxhole

Note to self: It is a good idea to “share” the location of your stashed cash.  There must be someone who you can trust with that information!  It’s also a good idea to write your “hiding spot” down somewhere in the event that your memory fades as years go by- especially if you never access your stash of cash. It is also very, very important to take your time when thoroughly cleaning out and investigating (and perhaps dismantling) the  contents of the home of your loved one with a fine toothed comb after their death.  After all, you might miss finding that “pot of gold”! Share any “finders keepers” stories with me. (On a side note, my mom kept a stash of cash inside a box of tissues.  Not a bad hiding place.)

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