Looking over last year's bank statements is so depressing: the stocks my mom left me were worh a lot in May 2008 and now they're worth a 10th of it. My IRA is down to little more than 50% and I ran across the offer to sell the property in May that my greedy brothers turned down for being too little. Fuckemall!
Not as big of a deal, but my mother found some savings bonds that were bought in the 80's. They had my name and my brother's name on them. She thought she had bought them and gave them to me to cash so my brother and I could split it. My brother could use the cash since construction work has been down lately.
It turned out that these were bonds HE purchased and I guess he gave them to my mom to keep track of and she forgot about them. So it was even better for him and I cashed them and gave him all the paperwork---I was very excited about the rate of return and he was VERY happy to have the cash, which I gave to him at Christmas.
Yesterday I got my tax statement from my bank. I didn't realize that since I did the cashing, I would have to pay taxes on the interest (almost $500!). I don't have the heart to ask him to pay it, but I wish I'd realized that and let him cash them!