Claim: October 2011 will include five Saturdays, five Sundays, and five Mondays, a phenomenon that occurs only once every 800+ years.
Examples:
[Collected via e-mail, September 2011]
Dang superstition here it is: This year October [2011] has 5 Saturdays,5 Sundays, and 5 Mondays. This happens once every 823 years. This is called money bags. So copy this to your status and money will arrive within 4 days. Based on Chinese Feng Shui. The one... who does not copy, will be without.. money. I can not let that person be...me
[Collected via e-mail, January 2011]
This year July [2011] has 5 Fridays, 5 Saturdays and 5 Sundays. This happens once every 823 years. This is called money bags. So: copy this to your status and money will arrive within 4 days... based on Chinese Feng Shui. The one who does not copy will be without money.
[Collected via e-mail, October 2010]
This October [2010] has 5 Fridays,5 Saturdays and 5 Sundays all in one month. It happens only once in 823 years.
[Collected via e-mail, August 2010]
INTERESTING FACT ABOUT AUGUST 2010... This August has 5 Sundays,5 Mondays,5 Tuesdays, all in one month. It happens once in 823 years.
[Collected via e-mail, August 2010]
5 Sundays, 5 Mondays & 5 Tuesdays all in 1 month this August 2010, once in 800 years
Variations: A November 2011 variant added the information that four unusual dates would occur during 2011: 1/1/11,1/11/11,11/1/11, and 11/11/11:
Do the math Chinese numerology and Feng Shui for 2011 This year we are going to experience four unusual dates: 1/1/11,<.NOBR> 1/11/11,11/1/11,11/11/11, and that's not all; Take the last two digits of the year you were born and the age you will be this year and the result will add up to 111 for everyone!!!! This is the year of MONEY. Also, this year, October will have 5 Sundays,5 Mondays & 5 Saturdays. This happens only once every 823 years. These particular years are known as Moneybag years. The proverb goes that if you send this to eight good friends, money will appear in the next four days, as is explained in the Chinese feng shui. Those who don't continue the chain, won't receive. It's a mystery, but it's worth a try. Good luck to you. This only happens once in 800+ years.
Origins: In August 2010, an item began circulating via social media sites and e-mail forwards claiming that month was something special: An August including five Sundays, Mondays, and Tuesdays happened only once every 800+ years, and 2010 was one of those rare years. A few months later, a similar item claimed the month of October 2010 would be likewise special for including five Fridays, five Saturdays, and five Sundays, another event supposedly occurring only once every 800+ years. In January 2011, Facebook users were exhorted to post as their status that same "only once every 800+ years" claim about July 2011 having five Fridays, five Saturdays, and five Sundays, that time with an additional specious bit about Chinese Feng Shui having dubbed this occurrence "money bags." And in September 2011, Facebook users were once again exhorted to post as their the "only once every 800+ years" claim about October 2011 having five Saturdays, Sundays and Mondays (again with the "money bags" hooey thrown in to keep it all warm).
Those months may be special, but only a little bit — nothing close to 800 years' worth of special. They, as do all months with 31 days, include five occurrences of three days of the week that follow a simple pattern which repeats every several years, as explained below using August 2010 as an example:
Since August always has 31 days, and a week always comprises seven days, August will include five Sundays, five Mondays, and five
Tuesdays anytime that month begins on a Sunday (as it did in 2010). And since a week has seven days, and a standard calendar year consists of fifty-two weeks plus one day, August begins on a Sunday an average of once every seven years (not once every 800 or 823 years).
Due to the irregularity caused by leap years, however, August does not begin on a Sunday exactly once every seven years; instead, the phenomenon follows a 6-5-6-11 pattern. That is, when August begins on Sunday, that event occurs again six years later, then five years later, then six years later, and finally eleven years later, whereupon the cycle repeats. Thus we see patterns of Sunday-beginning Augusts in clusters of years like the following:
1965, 1971, 1976, 1982, 1993
1993, 1999, 2004, 2010, 2021
2021, 2027, 2032, 2038, 2049
We're approaching the end of a cycle and thus the longest gap between occurrences, but that gap is a mere eleven years, not eight centuries.
As for the "money bags" canard, while there is a "money bag" in Chinese feng shui, it's an actual cloth bag carried by the Happiness Buddha rather than anything to do with e-mail forwards or the number 5.
To make your own cash-attracting feng shui "money bag," use a colored ribbon to tie nine coins into a square of cloth (both preferably red), then place your "money bag" on or near whichever spot in the house where money is either received or generated. (In other words, if your paycheck comes by mail, place it where you put incoming letters and packages; if your money comes via computer notification of a deposit to an online account, put it near your hard drive.)
