Wife accidentally donates husband's shirt with $8,000 in pocket to Goodwill

Always check those pockets before you donate your old clothes.

Bob Hoffmann of Placentia, California had saved up a total of $8,000 and intended to use the money to take his wife on a romantic getaway when tragedy struck: Bob's wife Linda Hoffmann had donated some old clothes to a local Goodwill, and inside of one of the shirts contained Bob's secret stash of cash.

“I didn’t think anybody would look in there,” Bob told the OC Register.

Bob says that he planned on saving $10,000, and after retiring as an operations manager at Ford in 2018, he intended to take his wife Linda, who he married in 2011, on a dream vacation to Italy.

According to the Register, Bob initially had the money tucked away safely in a bank, but withdrew his funds a few weeks ago after a a relative had fallen on hard times and was going to be evicted from their home. Bob took the money out of the bank, and intended to give it to his relative later in the week, so he stuffed it in the old shirt for safe keeping.

Later that night, Linda told her husband that she was going to donate some clothes to Goodwill, so he decided to help her out, and scooped up a bunch of old shirts from his closet, including the outdated orange shirt stuffed with $8,000 in cash.

Two days later, Bob realized the mistake he had made when he tried to add another $100 to the stack. After confessing the whole thing to Linda, the two rushed over to Goodwill where a team of employees helped them search for the orange shirt.

"Bob is an extremely strong human being," Linda told the Register. "I don't want to hurt his male ego ... but he was crying. I haven't seen him that distraught since his parents died."

The two left empty-handed that evening, but Goodwill rang the couple the next morning with good news: Bob's shirt -- and the money -- had been discovered in the warehouse.

Linda retrieved the money and tried to convince Goodwill to let her give them a reward. Goodwill declined, but after some negotiations, the couple and Goodwill agreed that a pizza party for the staff would be acceptable.

As for the relative, Bob found out that they no longer need the money, so now the money is back safely in the bank -- hopefully until the dream vacation is booked.