Student life can be a thrifty life. Living on noodles and toast, dressing in Penneys finest for four years, praying for free entry into the club on Tuesday nights and budgeting a tenner to get you to Friday.
Furniture shopping is not high on the agenda for most, but for three New York college students, a $20 investment paid some massive dividends.
SUNY students Reese Werkhoven, Callie Guasti and Lara Russo picked up a used couch from their local Salvation Army thrift store for the princely sum of $20, only to discover that there were envelopes stashed in the sofa. Those envelopes contained wads of cash amounting to $40,000.
The trip told WABC-TV: "At first we found the money but there was no name or anything, and we're bugging out, like, what kind of boat are we going to get, where are we going".
"Next door, they actually thought that we won the lottery. Our walls are really thin between our wall and their wall."
That was until they found a deposit slip with a woman’s details filled in. The students decided to track down the woman, and discovered that the money belonged to a 91-year-old who had hidden her savings because she didn’t trust banks. The elderly lady was in hospital with a broken hip when her unknowing children donated the couch.
Speaking to reporters, Werkhoven said: "It wasn't a debate, we immediately reached a consensus that this is her money."
They students did become better off from the adventure though, as the unnamed woman gave them $1,000 as a thank you gift.
