Maybe 25%

Unless he could see she clearly needs it more.

would he be buying at Habitat if he didn't need to...unless of course he's being ecological

I bought a like-new Thomasville queen bed there for $125. They do not sell junk. It's like blue jeans--never, ever buy them new without checking the Salvation Army store.

It's not a matter of not being about to afford new; for me, it's about buying more expensive than I could otherwise afford. Better a Thomasville bed from H for H than a piece of crap from Ashley.

However, my point is, you just don't know, he and or she could both use some cash. I applaud him and hope good comes out of it for him.

When I donate clothing to SA, I put a $5 bill into the pocket.

One time, a million years ago, when shopping options were limited, I found $7 in the pocket of some shorts I'd bought for 50 cents at the SA store. It made a difference for me, and I want to pay it forward.

Never would have occurred to me!

Charity thrift stores to see my money go to a worthy cause. He may have shopped there to help HFH. Blessings on him.

Sure I could've kept it, but it belonged to someone else. Money isn't everything.

One lost dog, I got a really nice bottle of Chardonnay. Another lost dog, I wouldn't take money because the woman looked to be financially challenged, but I heard prayers were said for me in local Catholic church, pretty good for a protestant, eh?

avoided it thinking it was a deceased pet or something. eventually the curiosity got to me and i found three envelopes with 100s and 50s worth $27,000. i kept it a secret for a while but if the owner got out of jail and came looking for it, or something....

i turned it into the cops and they told me to call in and check with detective bognazo or something and if they couldn't find the owner or no one claimed it in such and such a time it was mine. after the time was up i called in and the receptionist said there was no detective there by that name....... after i while though she said "ohhhhh.... yeah.... the new guy....."

anyway, it belonged to a previous owner and she gave me a reward. then she told me what she was going to do with it and i regretted returning it - she was going to put it all into some brazilian herb pyramid scheme.

oh well.

I tracked the owner down with the ID and they were thrilled and relieved. The cash was his rent payment for the month and he would have been hurting bad without it. I sought them out because it happened to me before. I once lost my wallet on the beach after I just cashed my paycheck. I was very young and poor then and I had to struggle hard for two months to fix that mistake. It's good to be empathetic and not just think about your personal gain in a situation. My wallet eventually did get mailed back to be by a hotel on the beach, missing all the cash of course.

This guy, who obviously needs money or he wouldn't be buying a second-hand couch, gets a windfall and searches for the source of the wind. To me, it's like a hungry man who catches a big fish and throws it back in the water because the fish has eggs in it. On the one hand, I applaud his desire to do the right thing as he sees it, but on the other hand I want to ask him why he's refusing his gift from fate. I saw a movie once about some people who found some money on a dead man and decided to keep it and then some very bad people came looking for it. Maybe he thought something like that would happen? Anyway, I agree with the poster above who said he should have gotten a big reward for his honesty.

Last edited Sat Jan 18, 2020, 06:28 PM - Edit history (1)

they keep no records of any donations.

The guy did the right thing.

Look at it that way, perhaps. Stories like this are interesting, more for the reactions of people than for the story, I think.

Obviously, the person who owned the couch and ottoman was keeping money in it for some reason. Probably out of distrust for banks, etc. So, nobody knew the money was there. The furniture ended up being resold after the family gave it away or sold it. Nobody investigated.

Guy buys it and finds the stash. Now, there's a dilemma. What to do? This guy decided that it wasn't his money, so he inquired as to where the couch had come from and returned Grandpa's money to the family. That was clearly the right thing to do, in a moral sense. Now, had the place where he got the couch not known who it had belonged to, the man would have no obligation to give the money to the store where he bought it. He could have kept it in good conscience.

In the end, the granddaughter got her inheritance. The man is rewarded by knowing he did the right thing.

I see no dilemma here, really. I'd have done the same thing. Not my money, so I'd try to find out the origin of the couch and give it back. If nobody knew the origin of the couch, I'd have kept it. But, I'd have to try to find the rightful owner. But, that's just me. Others might feel differently.

In this case, fate was in the hands of the finder of the money.

Exactly the same reasoning.

Very suspenseful little thriller.

I used to have a copy of it but I lost it. Had some good acting and directing. I love rude Scottish people, lol!

Some is inherited, but my couch is an antique which I bought at a thrift shop. Most new furniture is badly made and overpriced from what I have found. I have a power recliner that is only eight years old and the upholstery is worn through, the padding has disintegrated, the frame has needed repairs, and the springs are giving up.

The antique couch is over one hundred years old, was re-upholstered before I bought it, but the frame is solid and the springs are great. A vintage armchair I inherited needs work on the springs and padding, but the upholstery is in great shape and the frame is solid. It's only about 90 years old.

but I guess that's just the way I look at things.

Nobody wants it. Go look. You'll be surprised. My house is full of it, mostly from thrift shops.

I need some furniture for my extra bedroom and to replace my chair in the living room. I bought this chair in 2018, but it's about had it. It's a big recliner, but it's deceptively light. I think it's too light for someone my size. Maybe if I buy a better chair and lose some weight, I'll be able to make my furniture last. Thanks!

The cost of restoring such things is too high, it seems to me. However, I remember when my wife and I bought our house in St. Paul, MN. It had, of all things, a dining room. It was one of those 3-bedroom, one bath houses built in the 1950s. Often, the third bedroom, typically located next to the kitchen, got converted into a dining room.

My wife claimed the second bedroom as her office, and I set up a large office space in the basement. So, there was that dining room, empty of furniture. We both like entertaining, so we decided to use it as a dining room. I started looking for stuff to put in there. Here's what I did, while we still owned the ex-UHaul moving truck we bought for our move:

Every day, I made a trip to two local Goodwill stores that had furniture. I'd show up about two hours after the store opened. Every day, there were new pieces of furniture on display, moved out to replace things that had sold. Both Goodwill stores had a rather unique pricing strategy for furniture that was based on the function of each item. For example, all dining room chairs were priced at $5.99. All dining room tables were priced at $24.99. Age, condition, and other factors weren't considered in the pricing, to make it simpler for the people who ran the stores.

The first day I went, I spotted a dark oak sideboard, from the 1930s. It was big, heavy, and not the sort of thing that was in demand, but it was beautifully made and its finish was still pristine. The top of it was quarter-sawn oak, and the drawers and doors were carefully matched in terms of grain, etc. Beautiful. $39.99, which was the price of all sideboards. I bought it instantly, and went home to get the moving truck. I loaded it, with the help of a store worker, and carefully tied it down inside the truck. I didn't put it in the house, though.

A few days later, I found a dark oak dining table with two extension leaves. I'd guess it was from the 1940s, and the design was mission-style in its simplicity. The top had some scratches on it, but other than that, it was solid, well-made and attractive. Refinishing the top wouldn't be much of a job. $24.99. I put it in the truck and tied it down, too.

Another week went by. Chairs for our new dining room were a little harder to find. With both leaves in the table, it could seat 8. So, I needed six simple side chairs and two contrasting dining chairs with arms for the head and foot of the table. One day, I found two large Windsor-style chairs with arms in two different Goodwill stores. They were slightly different in design, but both were made by excellent furniture companies and were well-designed and manufactured. $5.99 each. In another store, each would have been around $100. It took two more weeks before I found a matched set of six simpler dining room chairs. All were Windsor-style and equally well-made. The set was priced at $29.99. Into the truck they went.

Over the following week, I refinished the top of the dining table and cleaned up and polished all of the rest of the pieces. Then, I moved them all into our new dining room. All together, our dining room furniture cost less than $125. Every piece was high-quality furniture and the entire set worked very well together, visually. We hung a picture on the wall, replace the light over the table with a modern fixture, filled the sideboard with table settings, serving pieces, etc. along with table linens, and planned our first dinner for guests.

All of that took time, but we ended up with a room full of excellent furniture for the cost of one chair of the same quality, if purchased new.

Not that any in my family turned our noses up so long as it was in good shape and had a lot of use in it. Mom bought a lot of our books and our clothes in thrift shops. She'd also buy old furniture and re-upholster it herself since we had little money when I was a kid. Now some of the furniture she bought in the 1950s and 1960s is antique and worth a whole lot more than she paid for it even if you consider her labor when she worked on it.

My sister is a thrift store addict - she began while she was in college and bought all her clothes and furniture at various stores. In the Tampa - St. Petersburg area at lot of the furniture at the thrift stores even fifty years ago was antique. Stuff that people's parent owned when they died was often donated by the families who did not want it or did not want to pay shipping to where ever they lived. She still has most of the second hand furniture she bought back then and some of the pieces are very nice and possibly valuable antiques.

She also found some valuable jewelry that had been written off as costume jewelry - carved amethysts with inset diamonds, real diamonds and other precious stones that were in settings that were not in style at the time she bought them.

Much of what she has was not antique at the time she bought it - but it was attractive, solid furniture with a lot of use for the future. Now it has probably passed the one hundred year mark that makes it antique and still going strong.

I'm in need of some new furniture and I can't afford the new stuff. Sounds like I need to check out what they have in the thrift stores. There are some places I could check out a little north of here, too. Thanks for the idea; I've got half a house to furnish.

But learn what to check to make sure the pieces are solid. The nice thing is that you can select from a wide range of styles. Sometimes you're lucky and will find a piece that does not need new upholstery, but check how much it would cost to redo a couch of chair so you can factor that into the final cost.

For instance, the couch I have has great upholstery, but just a little "cat love" on the front of one arm. The shop selling it had discounted it because of that. Since I had cats and it was not that noticeable, the damage didn't bother me and I was happy to get a good price. If I needed to get it upholstered, that would have added significantly to the price, maybe doubled it.

I have a beautiful rocking chair my husband and I found at a thrift shop. It is solid oak but when we looked at it originally, the wood was black, most of the upholstery was just tatters of leather hanging off the few nails left and the spring were nearly rotted through. We stripped everything off and had it refinished, the re-upholstered. I think we paid $50 for it, then about $100 for the refinishing (which I could have done myself), and another $100 to have it upholstered in burgundy leather. Today it would cost about $500 to buy a chair like it if we could find one. It is the most comfortable rocking chair I have ever used - and it is comfortable for my husband who is foot taller than I am.

One thing we used to not worry about but which seems prevalent today are bedbugs and other pests. Check for them before committing to the piece, especially with upholstered furniture.

https://freshome.com/2010/09/17/20-tips-for-buying-second-hand-furniture/
https://www.moneytalksnews.com/12-tips-for-buying-high-quality-low-priced-furniture/

Also, get to know the local thrift shops. Some have a better selection of clothes than furniture. Some places once they know you and what you are looking for may be able to call you if the type of piece you are looking for comes in. One shop my sister used to go to knew her so well, they set aside clothes her size for her to look at before they put them out on the racks!

Few would do the same, I'm afraid. Karma, I hope, will reward him.

and they kept half without telling anyone?

I was there recently in search of furniture and found an ottoman I liked but didn't buy because it was so uncomfortable. Dang it.

Wait till the end.

When — not “if” — IMPOTUS torpedos the world economy, having a tidy sum of cash stowed away at home might be the difference between survival and losing everything.

Apocryphal stories from the Great Depression told of people who had stuffed their mattresses with cash. Perhaps grandpa took such stories to heart. Or, maybe he was laundering money for Russian oligarchs.

I just checked my living room suite. Sofa cushions have zippers, but not the ottoman. Just in case my IRA or 401(k) goes south in the coming months.