How to get the most out of your giftcards and use up every last bit!

Giftcards are great to receive, and also to buy as gifts for others. Often there’s promotions so we get extra for buying them, or receive them as gifts. And prepaid mastercards and visa’s are a hot gift with kids – they can use them to shop online or at the store, buy video games etc.

But what happens when there’s only a little bit left on them? Often they get tucked away in our wallet or a drawer since there’s just a few bucks left, to be forgotten.

It’s a good idea to round these up and get organized! If you have a lot of them, get your computer out and the phone – get a marker or some post it notes too.

Start by getting them all together, I recently did this and was amazed at where they all end up. A lot of prepaid cards I thought were worthless, so they just piled up in our wallets and desk drawers. I sat down and checked all the balances – I was pretty surprised to see what we’d been sitting on. And this is something I do often enough, so it adds up quickly.

You can either check balances online or by phone for all types of cards – credit cards, store gift cards, restaurants, movies etc.

If you have a lot of prepaid credit cards with small amounts and no clue where you’d spend 35 cents, or 3.12$ etc. – log into your amazon account. In just a few minutes you can use each card to buy amazon credit – perfect way to finish those cards off, and the money will be there next time you order anything from amazon! Go to your account, then to reload your balance and it’s just a few more steps. This is the easiest way to use up those tiny amounts – you might not remember to use $2 up at the grocery store – the card might not even go through for that amount. But any amount works on amazon!

If you mostly have cards for specific stores, write the amount down left on a post it taped to it, or even just with a sharpie. If you know the specific amount it makes it a lot easier to use it – and you’ll remember to do so if there’s a post it wrapped around it too! Certain stores need to know the exact amount before processing it too – saves a step. Some cards you can reload too, so if it’s something you use often but there’s not enough to use again, add a little bit more to it so you can get a coffee or meal.

If you find you have a lot of cards left over, plan an outing with them, or a shopping trip. If you find you won’t ever use it and it’s still full look into trading sites or even ask around if anyone wants to trade.

I’m always surprised at how many gift cards we end up with – especially after birthdays or Christmas.

I recently heard of a person working at a recycling plant who finds a lot of gift cards thrown away – a lot with small balances left on them, so figured it was a good time to check ours and pass those tips along. The day I cleaned ours out I ended up with $27 in my amazon account – not a fortune, but money that was just sitting there totally forgotten about.

Let me know if you clean yours out, what you end up finding! And what are your tips for using them up?