Are You Sitting on Unclaimed Gift Card, Voucher Money?
Might want to clean out that junk drawer.
It happens to the best of us. You get a gift card from a friend or many because you spent a certain amount at your favorite store. You have every intention of spending the money, but somehow that free money gets buried in a wallet or tossed in a drawer.
And you know what they say, "out of sight, out of mind."
I've done this quite often. I've also had plenty of gift cards sit around for a year with just a few bucks on them. That's how it works, right? Even if you're good at spending that free money, those cards only seem valuable when you know you won't have to spend a dime. If you know you have to fork over some of your own money to get that pumpkin spice latte, you're less likely to use it.
This is how so much money goes unclaimed.
According to a recent survey from Bankrate, quite a bit of gift cards, vouchers and credits seem to get forgotten. Their survey revealed 51 percent of adults are guilty of neglecting their financial gifts. This has led to about $15.3 billion left on the table across the nation.
That's an average of $116 per person.
I know what you're thinking and yes, I could use that extra hundred bucks too. It doesn't feel like that much when it's just a card or two here or there.
Luckily, we're getting better at remembering to use our gifts. That $166 per person average is down from $167 per person in January 2020. Of course, I think now, more than ever, we're counting every single penny on those store credits and vouchers. Everything has gotten so expensive in the last few months and we can use all the help we can get.
And we intend on using that money when we get around to it.
63 percent of Baby Boomers said they will use their vouchers. Behind them was Gen X at 54 percent, followed by Millennials at 42 percent and Gen Z at 32 percent.
That is, if they get a chance to.
The survey also found that nearly half of Americans have lost their free money. 49 percent have pulled out a gift card only to find that it had expired.
I don't know about you, but I'm going to dig around the house and see what I can find. Dinner just might be on me tonight!