Nine-year-old Landon Melvin of Indiana recently learned this lesson for himself, when he was tasked with helping to clean out his family’s SUV. There, he found an enormous wad of cash tucked under one of the floor mats.

“I was cleaning my dad’s car when I looked under the floorboard and I found a package,” Landon told WRTV Indianapolis. “I told my dad and he said, ‘whatever.’”

His dad, Michael Melvin, confirmed his response to ABC7 Chicago.

“You know, I did,” he said. “I was like, ‘whatever.’ He’s 9.” At the time, he assumed it was “probably paperwork of some sort.”

“He says, ‘No, Dad, I really did,’” Michael recounted. “I walk over. I see it. I reach down. I say, you know, ‘What is this?’”

They soon realized that they had stumbled upon something of enormous value.

“I look at him and run inside,” Michael told WRTV. “I go upstairs. I start calling my wife, ‘Hey, babe, you got to check this out!’ And that’s when we dump it on the bed and money falls over the bed.”

Inside the parcel was $5,000 in cash along with several checks. However, Michael made it clear that the idea of keeping the money “never crossed [his] mind.” Instead, he got straight to work tracking down its rightful owners.

The money reportedly belonged to a South Carolina family who had placed it there before driving to Florida for a cruise, in 2019, and forgotten its location. The Melvin family bought the used Chevy Suburban in September 2020 but just recently got around to doing the deep-clean.

As a thanks for his good deed, the owners of the money insisted that Landon keep $1,000—a hefty sum of cash for anyone, let alone a 9-year-old. But when asked what he plans to do with his $1000, Landon still isn’t quite sure.

“It’s upstairs in my room,” he told ABC7. “I’ve just been thinking and thinking of all the stuff I could buy,” he said.

He also told the news outlet that he will never again turn down a request to clean the family’s car.

Meanwhile, Michael learned an important lesson of his own.

“Check floor mats, always,” he said. “We went back out, and we checked all the rest of the floor mats. I mean, what else is hidden in this vehicle? So, that’s one thing I’m going to definitely do when I clean vehicles out. That’s the first place I’m starting.”