For the past few years, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and others who have wanted to give gifts to my kids and not known exactly what to get, have sent gift cards. This is a fabulous way to give a gift to an adolescent or teenager, of course, but now, I’m wondering what to do with all these dozens and dozens of partially-used plastic cards.
With three teens, you might imagine how quickly the gift card slush pile can accumulate. We have got identical-sized cards laying around the house for everything from department stores and shopping malls, to restaurants and movie theatres. The thing is, they have all been used, but not entirely zeroed-out–so they still have some value. We would not throw away $1.87 in cash, so it seems very wasteful to just toss out the plastic gift cards. So, the cards languish and lie around the house–tucked in baskets and boxes and used as book marks in various books.
Recently, I had one of my daughters call about a stack of cards I found sitting by the phone. As she dialed each phone number, she discovered that each and every card had a remaining balance. Of course, we have no idea exactly which card belongs to which child, but the cards remain in consumption limbo–we can’t throw them away and no one either remembers or wants to use them to finish off the last sixty-seven cents.
I think it would be very cool if there was a place to donate unfinished gift cards–like we can do with outgrown clothes and newspapers. There might be quite a value in a nonprofit or charity collecting and cashing in the value of gift cards not-quite-done. All those dollars and cents remaining just might add up to a hefty and useful amount to someone!
See Also: Inexpensive Gift Ideas