David Peters, financial advisor and certified public accountant, joined Cheddar News to provide tips on why people should take advantage of using their gift cards.

Americans Have $21 Billion in Unused Gift Cards

joining me now is Financial Advisor David Peters with tips to spend the last few bucks on your gift card. Maybe even the last few cents, David is good to see you and we know there are different types of gift cards out there obviously. But let's start with just a general purpose card issued by Visa, Mastercard or american Express. What do you do if a small balance is left on these cards? Well, I think we've all been there. Right. I mean you buy what you want to buy and then you may have a dollar or two left um with the with the general gift cards, like the ones from Visa and Mastercard. Um Obviously the easiest thing to do is if you can go to a brick and mortar store, um you can pay for something using the remaining balance on the gift card and then just pay the remainder the way that you normally would, but but if you're looking to maybe uh maybe do something a little bit different, maybe you don't want to buy in a brick and mortar store. One of the things that you can do is you can maybe go onto an online retailer like amazon or walmart and then you can buy an E gift card using your physical gift card that you have. And so effectively what you've done then is is that you've taken a general gift card and turned it into an e gift card. Okay, That's actually really clever because I can't tell you how many times they have like a dollar and 24 cents left on a General Visa card, let's just say for example here and I take it to a retailer, the grocery store in the new york city area and they say nope it's too small of a number. You can't pay with that and we can't you can't split the purchase either, so that's a good tip. Um But what about a store specific card? Right. Whether it's a restaurant, whether it is a walmart or an amazon. And let's just say that some of these stores perhaps there isn't something that you want to buy. Are there options for you to reclaim that money? Yeah. So I mean one of the things that you can try is is that most stores do have a return policy and that typically does include gift cards. And so one of the things that you can try to do is you can just try to return the gift card that may be an option. Um you know if that doesn't work then you know what you could do is you could potentially go online and try to sell the gift card. There are some websites that are out there where you can actually sell a gift card. For example a car hard cash is one of them. There are several others but the only issue is that if you do go onto a site like that most of the time you are going to be receiving the card minus a discount. So for example if maybe you have, you know, $8 left, you might be able to get $6 out of it or something like that? So you're never going to get the full amount. Okay. What about getting cash back on any of these unused funds? Is that a possibility, David? So it's possible. I mean, again, you know, for example, may be trying to do something through card cash, maybe trying to sell it. Um Also, I would say to that, you know, especially for like some of your local stores, some of your local restaurants, every gift card is negotiable at least to a point. And so you might be able to just, you know, take it back and be able to, you know, possibly get the retailer to uh, you know, potentially give you cash. Um Also, so some states, as we're seeing up on the screen now, they do say that that within certain states, what you can do is the retailer can actually give you cash if you are below a certain balance. So if you go into one of those states where that is something that can happen, um then the the retailer can actually give you whatever the balances on that card, as long as it is, it's below whatever is mandated by that state for that ballot. Okay, so here's another story that's been picking up a lot of traction in the past week, especially heading into the holidays around the holiday weekend. Is that according to a report Americans hold onto $21 billion dollars an unused gift cards. So are there reminders, are there ways to hold yourself accountable so that these gift cards, you actually collect even a portion of the fund if you're not going to collect the whole thing. Yeah, So I mean I I think that everybody's had that happen. You know, you kind of buy what you want and then there's just a, you know, a couple of bucks left and, you know, it's just too much effort. So you just kind of, you know, throw the gift card in a drawer or something and, and it, it goes to waste. And so, you know, one of the things that I do is is that just as kind of a visual reminder is that I'll put a gift card in my wallet kind of right up in front and it reminds me that I have it. It reminds me to use it when, when I have, because I think a lot of that battle is that people just forget that they actually have the card. And so that's one way to do it, put it where in your wallet where you're likely to see it kind of right away. All right. David Peters, great advice applies to all of us. That's for sure. David's a financial advisor and accountant. Thank you