The Christmas Gift Card

I think that getting gift cards for Christmas is a great way of buying something for that difficult person to buy for, or to help "go in" on a gift for that same person. However as I sat around after Christmas consolidating my Tim Hortons gift cards on to one card a thought came to mind. How many gift cards don't get used or get left with a very small balance left on them?

Thinking about it for a moment, I realised why the major retailers all offer gift cards, they get the money immediately and get to use your money before they have even sold you anything and then there is always the chance that you will not use the gift card or leave a small balance on it giving them even more money for free!

As I looked in to it some more it became evident that on some cards there are also fees for not using the cards and these fees will use up your remaining balance, I guess that is a way of ligitimising taking your money and giving you nothing in return by the retailer!

So here are some numbers on unused gift cards, now sit down and be ready for this.

• 15% of gift cards are not used in the first 60 days of purchasing them (that is 2 months of free money for the retailer)
• Since 2005 there is approximately $41 Billion in unused gift cards (I am not sure if that is in the US and Canada or just the US) 

$41 Billlion is a lot of free money that retailers have collected just for having a gift card available at the cash register.

So my advice to you this New Year, get out and use your gift cards and make sure to leave no balance on them. With some cards like Tim Hortons and Starbucks you can go to their website register the cards and merge them on to one card so all those small balances add up, one way of making sure you use them up completely.