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She found a bunch of cash in a thrift-store purse. But the stunning handwritten note left her speechless.

She paid $7 for a used Coach bag at Goodwill, but what she found hidden under the lining made it the most valuable purchase of her life.

By

Adam Albright Hanna

By

GOOD Staff

By  Adam Albright Hanna  and  GOOD Staff
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thrift store finds, cash in purse, Martha infused TikTok, Goodwill Coach bag, viral handwritten note, hidden money thrift store, Lynora TikTok
A woman shops at a thrift store – Photo credit: Canva

Thrift shopping is basically a treasure hunt. You dig through racks of old t-shirts hoping to find a gem, but usually you just find a lot of dust.

However, sometimes the universe delivers.

Lynora, a TikTok user who posts as @marthainfused, shared a wild experience from a recent trip to Goodwill. She managed to snag a used Coach bag for the incredibly low price of $6.99. The bag was a little dirty and clearly well-loved, but for seven bucks, it was a steal.

@marthainfused

Check your mother’s purses before you donate them to goodwill! #justsaying #omgchallenge #foundmoney #goodwillfinds #goodwill #donate #justkiddingrelax ♬ original sound – Be A Martha

“Wait till you find out what’s inside,” she teased in the video.

The Discovery

When Lynora got the bag home, she started the deep cleaning process. She peeled back the flap at the bottom of the purse to clean out the lining and noticed something strange. There was an envelope hidden underneath the base cover.

Inside the envelope was a stack of cash totaling $300. But the money was arguably the least interesting part of the find. Written on the envelope was a note from a woman named Martha.

thrift store finds, cash in purse, Martha infused TikTok, Goodwill Coach bag, viral handwritten note, hidden money thrift store, Lynora TikTok
An envelope filled with cash Canva

The Note

The note explained that Martha knew her children would donate her belongings when she passed away, so she decided to beat them to the punch.

“I have three children, they will give my things to Goodwill when I die. So, I am putting their inheritance inside all my favorite things,” the note read.

But Martha had one more secret to share. She explained exactly why this specific Coach bag was her favorite, and the reason was pure, delightful pettiness.

“I came home early from a visit to my parents in Connecticut and she must have left her bag and shoes,” Martha wrote, referring to her husband’s mistress. “I carried this bag every day. I wonder if my husband knew it was his girlfriend’s.”

thrift store finds, cash in purse, Martha infused TikTok, Goodwill Coach bag, viral handwritten note, hidden money thrift store, Lynora TikTok
Gif of someone saying Giphy

She explained that she carried the bag daily out of spite and was now giving it away because her children didn’t want it. She ended the note by telling the finder to use the $300 to go buy themselves a new bag.

The Legacy of Martha

The story quickly went viral, with viewers applauding Martha’s chaotic energy.

“Is this for real!?” one user commented. “Martha, I know you must be smiling down from heaven for real!”

Lynora was so moved by the story that she decided to keep the “Martha” spirit alive. In a follow-up video, she revealed that she wanted to pay it forward.

@marthainfused

#BeAMartha #findmartha #martha #infusedreleaf #notyourtypicaltopical #lesbiansoftiktok #Shine #4u #foryoupage ♬ original sound – Be A Martha

“Just got back from donating a bunch of stuff at Goodwill,” she said. “And you know what, I put $100 in the pocket of a pair of jeans. In a world full of Karens, be a Martha.”

This article originally appeared last year.

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  • A woman complained to her upstairs neighbor about a strange noise in the middle of the night. His wholesome response was perfect.
    A woman reads a note from her neighbor – Photo credit: Canva
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    A woman complained to her upstairs neighbor about a strange noise in the middle of the night. His wholesome response was perfect.

    She’d never met the man upstairs. Turns out, he already knew exactly who she was.

    Adam Albright-Hanna

    She had never actually met the man who lived above her. She knew him only as the source of the noise coming through her ceiling at 12:30 in the morning, the night after Super Bowl LIX. She pulled herself out of bed, went upstairs, and asked him through his Ring camera to please turn it down. He was polite. She went back to sleep.

    The next morning, there was a bottle of wine outside her door.

    The woman, who goes by u/operarose on Reddit, posted the photo to r/MadeMeSmile , and it pulled in 84,000 upvotes, as Newsweek reported. The caption was simple: “Had to get out of bed and go ask the upstairs neighbor (whom I’ve never actually met) to turn it down at about 12:30 am this morning. Found this outside my door when I woke up.”

    Had to get out of bed and go ask the upstairs neighbor (whom I've never actually met) to turn it down at about 12:30 am this morning. Found this outside my door when I woke up.
    byu/operarose inMadeMeSmile

    Attached to the bottle was a handwritten note. “I got too carried away watching recaps from the Superbowl and I didn’t realize how loud my TV was,” it read. “I’m so sorry for not being considerate with the volume. In positive news, the cookies you made for Christmas were amazing. Please allow me to return the favor.”

    That last part is what made the story. He already knew who she was. She’d baked Christmas cookies and apparently given some to neighbors she’d never formally met. He’d received them, remembered, and now here he was, months later, referencing them in an apology note attached to a bottle of wine.

    neighbors, kindness, apology, community, apartment living
    Plate of holiday cookies. Image source: Canva

    She reported back in the comments that the wine was good. “Never had this brand before, but I definitely recommend it,” she wrote.

    Etiquette expert Jo Hayes told Newsweek the neighbor had essentially done everything right. “A clear, sincere apology is necessary, and he did exactly this. Plus a kind word about the Christmas cookies. Plus a gift, as a token gesture of said apology, is the icing on the cake. This would have flooded the downstairs neighbor with warm fuzzies.”

    The comments filled with people who seemed almost relieved. “It’s insane just how hard it is to find people who can just be considerate and move on,” one user wrote. “Congratulations to both of you for spontaneously demonstrating how to be an adult,” said another. “This is how you neighbor,” someone summed up simply.

    The whole exchange took about two minutes of awkwardness and produced something neither of them had before the night started: a neighbor they actually know.

    This article originally appeared earlier this year.

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  • He threw a message in a bottle into the ocean as a teen. It washed up 49 years later with a response.
    A bottle with a message inside resting on a beach – Photo credit: Canva
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    He threw a message in a bottle into the ocean as a teen. It washed up 49 years later with a response.

    Two beachcombing brothers nearly skipped the trip. On a remote Bahamian island, one of them found a sand-covered glass Pepsi bottle with a note inside from 1976.

    Adam Albright-Hanna

    In May 1976, a ninth-grader named Peter R. Thompson sealed a short note inside a glass Pepsi bottle, handed it to the Coast Guard, and watched it get dropped into the Atlantic Ocean. The note asked whoever found it to write back with the date, location, and how they’d come across it. He was 14. He was doing it for an oceanography class at Pentucket Regional Junior High School in West Newbury, Massachusetts. He then, by his own admission, mostly forgot about it.

    The bottle drifted for 49 years.

    Earlier this year, brothers Clint and Evan Buffington had nearly canceled a trip to a remote out-island in the Bahamas after both came down with an illness. They went anyway. As Clint told WCVB, they were walking the beach on a beautiful sunny morning when his walkie-talkie crackled to life. His brother’s voice came through: “You’re not going to believe what I just found.”

    It was the bottle. Inside, the note was sand-covered and browned with age but still fully legible, more than 1,000 miles from where it had started.

    As reported by Boston.com, Clint Buffington is no casual beachcomber. He found his first message in a bottle in 2007 and has since found over 120 of them, documenting each one on his Message in a Bottle Hunter blog. He knew immediately this one was special. In a Facebook post that began circulating widely, he wrote about what the note meant not just as an artifact, but as a window into the mind of a kid from the 1970s with a science assignment and a big imagination: “Just think what it meant to the 14-year-old kid who sent it in the 70s! The dreams of where it would travel, where it might wind up, who might find it.”

    @clint_buffington

    Here’s the 1976 message in a bottle my brother found a few weeks ago! Y’all wanted to know what it says, so here you go 🙂 Now, to some, this may sound like a pretty “straightforward” message… No romance, no pirate treasure map. But just think what it meant to the 14 year old kid from West Newbury Massachusetts who sent it in the 70s! The dreams of where it would travel, where it might wind up, who might find it… Well, after who knows how many trips around the North Atlantic, drifting past whales and cargo ships, shimmering under the northern lights…it wound up on a very sparsely inhabited out-island of the Bahamas and rested in the sun as world leaders and wars came and went, music and clothing styles rose and fell. Somewhere in there, my brother (who found it) and I were born, grew up, went to school, got married, had kids…. And all that time, this message was waiting to be found. There’s way more going on with this message than you could ever imagine just by reading it! So, here’s hoping we connect with Peter R. Thompson of West Newbury, MA — And that wherever he is today, he still has that 14-year-old dreamer inside him, full of curiosity! #messageinabottle #westnewbury #massachusetts #beachcombing #beachcomber #beachcombingtreasure #treasurehunting #fun #happy #goodvibes #newengland #lostandfound #exciting

    ♬ original sound – Message in a Bottle Hunter

    He went on to describe the bottle’s imagined journey across the North Atlantic, drifting past whales and cargo ships, sitting on a Bahamian shoreline while decades of history rolled by, while he and his brother were born, grew up, got married, had kids. “And all that time,” he wrote, “this message was waiting to be found.”

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    @clint_buffington

    Wow, you guys! Guess what? WE FOUND PETE THOMPSON!! The author of this 1976 message in a bottle!! My sweet brother, Evan, and I are still reeling from the outpouring of support and help we got through TikTok and @WCVB Channel 5 Boston News as we searched for Pete, who was about 14 when he sent the bottled note 49 years ago. Well, thanks to YOU all, we DID find him!!! I mean, really, we are just two goofy brothers, now dads in our 40s (where did the time go!) who have a weird hobby (finding messages in bottles) and we’ve never gone viral on TikTok, so we are a little overwhelmed and a lot grateful! Evan was FLOORED when we very luckily happened to be together this past week, and in the midst of this wild search for Pete, all of a sudden we received a phone call from WCVB’s Emily Maher who had Pete ON THE PHONE WITH US!!! We had a great little chat, all of us totally in shock, and we all STILL are! Pete still lives in the area and was deeply surprised to hear about his message in a bottle—at last check he was still combing through memories of his science / Oceanography class for recollections of making this message in a bottle. It’s amazing what one little scrap of paper in a bottle can do—the memories it can rekindle, the friendships it can spark. It’s so strange to think that this bottle was sent 6 years before Evan was born, and 8 years before I was. Every day of our lives, every little triumph or loss—graduations, meeting and losing friends, getting our drivers licenses, family vacations when we were tiny…every single breath we’ve ever breathed, and this message in a bottle was out there the whole time, just waiting… Sharing this with Pete is a great joy, and sharing it with all of you—who really seem to understand why we love this crazy hobby so much—has also been a total thrill. We have so many more unopened messages in bottles to investigate, and we will need your help! Each one is a portal into someone else’s life, into their world, and who knows where the next one will take us?! We really hope you stick around for the ride. So, from Evan, from me: Thank you, thank you, thank you. We could not have done this without you! As Evan says in this video, “It takes a village”!! Here’s hoping we can return Pete’s message to him! #messageinabottle #westnewbury #massachusetts #boston #newengland #bahamas #fun #happy #goodvibes #goodnews #beachcombing #beachcombingfinds #oceanography #grateful #gratitude

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    @clint_buffington

    Ahoy, New England!! My goonball brother EVAN found this 1976 message in a Pepsi bottle on a sparsely inhabited Bahamas island last month, 49 years after it was sent by a Peter R. Thompson who lived in West Newbury, MA at the time! He was a 9th grader at Pentucket Regional Junior High School. Yes, there are many Peter Thompsons on social media but we can’t seem to find the right one! Does anyone out there know the right Peter? And @pepsi – if you are looking to rack up some good karma, here’s a chance: Get out your megaphone! Let’s find Peter R. Thompson and COMPLETELY BLOW HIS MIND!! #messageinabottle #pepsi #westnewbury #massachussets #newengland #lostandfound #beachcombing #beachcomber #beachcombingaddict #beachcombingfinds #beachtreasure #trashtotreasure #found #exciting #fun #mystery #happy #goodvibes #goodnews #solvethis #whoareyou #bahamas #treasurehunter

    ♬ original sound – Message in a Bottle Hunter

    This article originally appeared last year.

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    (Left) Tamales in the corn husk. (Right) A woman works on a laptop. – Photo credit: Canva
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    Restaurant owner turns a fake 1-star tamale review into a social media frenzy

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    A restaurant owner shared a strategic, fake one-star review that became a social media frenzy. Posing as Rebecca O., the first review described the tamale-eating experience as “absolutely awful tamale.” A second review followed, joking that Rebecca didn’t know to remove the husk before eating it.

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    One-star tamale review goes viral

    Located in Phoenix, Arizona, The Tamale Store is a family-owned Mexican restaurant. After Alvarado craftily posted the first one-star review, the second earned a full four stars. It read, “OK, I was just told I’m not supposed to eat the cornhusk. That just changed the whole experience. Seriously the best thing I’ve ever tried omg. Sorry I don’t know how to delete my other review, my bad.”

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    tamale, restaurants, Mexican food, husk, food preparation, funny story
    Unwrapping a tamale from the corn husk.
    Photo credit: Canva

    People share their thoughts with Rebecca

    One of the reasons behind the success of the fake one-star review was its relatability. Here are some of the comments shared on one of the Instagram posts:

    “Welcome to the wonderful world of tamales, Rebecca.”

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