My nan
Due to circumstances that would make a fine BBC Sunday evening costume drama, my familly on my mothers side went from exceptionally rich to exceptionally poor and back to fairly well off (like I remember my grandparents having a butler, fairly well off).

Because of the "exceptionally poor" period of her life, my grandmother would never throw anything away and therefore had a massive collection of Readers Digests, old kettles, old toasters, vintage clothing, incomplete dinner services and the like.

After my grandad died, she slowly lost her marbles until the time came when she had to go into a care home. When we were sorting out a bit of furniture for her to take with her to her new home, we discovered she was good at hording something else.

Money.

Since she didn't trust banks, she drew her pensions (one state, one decent private and one decent private widow's one) in cash. She was eating at my parents' house most nights and didn't really spend a lot on anything else. In the bureau in her drwaing room, we found a couple of drawers stuffed full of £20 notes.

My mother, my aunt and I sat down and counted it all. Turned out there was about £12,000 there which, as it turns out, makes a thoroughly unimpressive stack of notes.
(ScousersPet, Wed 9 May 2012, 15:02, 1 reply)

12k in 20's is about 5/6 inches in height when stacked.
(feedingtimeatthezoo day 1 of his bikini diet started, Thu 10 May 2012, 10:35, closed)