Three college kids bought a ratty old couch from a local Salvation Army thrift store and it just happened to have $41,000 in cash stuffed in it.

Reese Werkhoven, a third year geology student at SUNY New Paltz in New York, told CBS New York he and his roommates felt something off while sitting on it even though they had owned it two months. They investigated the couch and found the cash stuffed in two or three bubble wrap envelopes.

Werkhoven lives in the college town with Cally Gausti, a Mount Holyoke College graduate, and Lara Russo, a SUNY New Paltz graduate.

"You keep counting more and more money and you get excited, like Reese was thinking about buying a car for his mom and a boat," Russo told CBS New York.

However, one envelope had a woman's name on it and the three students knew what they had to do. Werkhoven's mother helped the group locate the woman, who they contacted and returned the money to.

"The entitlement very quickly went away with finding that notice with her name on it. Because we didn't earn that money," Guasti said.

The woman did not even tell her family she stashed the money in the couch and they donated it without her knowing. The $41,000 was her life savings.

"I'm like 'I found something that I think is yours' and she's like 'what?!' and I'm like 'I found a couch' and then she's like 'oh my God I left a lot of money in that couch,'" said Werkhoven. "I think it's just that anyone can do good if they will themselves to it."

The woman is reportedly planning to have the three students over for dinner and will also give them $1,000 to split amongst themselves as a reward.

"This was her life savings and she actually said something really beautiful like 'this is my husband looking down on me and this was supposed to happen,'" Guasti told CBS New York.

"The most money I'd ever found in a couch was like fifty cents," Werkhoven told the Little Rebellion, a campus newspaper. "Honestly, I'd be ecstatic to find just $5 in a couch."