I had eight gift cards rattling around in my purse, each of which had a balance of $4 or less on it. I was incapable of tossing them out, because a buck is a buck, right? I just never found myself in a place where I needed exactly $2.38 or precisely $3.97 or some such. What to do with them, then? Let them languish in my purse in perpetuity among the Matchbox cars and lipstick and Haribo Roulettes? Then it hit me. I felt like a genius.
Now, before I tell you my idea, I’ll be the first to admit I know I’m probably not the first person to think of it, but I figured if I didn’t realize it before, maybe some of YOU didn’t know you could do this. So, at the risk of looking terribly silly, here’s my lifehack:
Use your small balances to buy custom Amazon.com gift cards in the exact amount left on the card.
It’s just that easy! On Amazon.com, you can specify any amount for a gift card from $0.50 on up to infinity. ..not that I’ve tried infinity, but I figure you probably can should you have infinity at your disposal. You send the gift cards to YOURSELF, plug all the codes into your Amazon account, then VOILA! you have a nice little amount to use toward your next Amazon purchase. Because -if you’re anything like me- you’ll have a purchase to make there, soon.
How to get value from empty gift cards and/or hotel key cards
So if you’ve accrued a few of those gift codes and are looking for something to do with the empty gift credit cards and/or hotel key cards, look no further than the Pick Punch. This ridiculously handy device has changed my guitar-playing husband’s life. Essentially, it’s a giant hole punch in the size/shape of a guitar pick. I used to buy a bag of 100 guitar picks for him every year at Christmas, and by February, they were all scattered to the four corners of the globe. The Pick Punch has made it so that he never runs out of picks. EVER. You can get -according to The Evil Genius’s calculations- five perfect, standard-sized, medium weight guitar picks from one spent credit card, gift card, or hotel key card. With holidays around the bend (don’t even look at me like that. If Dollar General can have Halloween decorations out, I can start mentioning gift giving for those of us who buy ahead of time!) this is a good one to keep in mind for your favourite guitarist or bassist.
There are a lot of imitators out there now, but the The Original Guitar Pick Punch
I bought for my husband years ago is still going strong, so I can wholeheartedly put my recommendation behind it!
There you have it folks. My lifehack. Am I the only one who hadn’t thought of this before?
Reader's Thoughts...
Todd says
Amazon has a $5 minimum now on GCs. This used to be an ideal way to use those small amounts up!
Thomi Capeli says
Yep, Amazon now has a minimum of $5 to buy an Amazon Gift Card. I have 4 x $3 and 1 x $2 virtual pre-paid Visa card and cannot use them literally anywhere as they have an expiration date and most places you cannot do split payment, let alone using them in a store (they’re virtual card)… So what to do with them? I cannot even add them all up to the $14 and buy an Amazon gift card for $14 because I cannot pay it with several split pay payments, and I cannot tell amazon during the checkout to charge x amount on card x and the other amount(s) on the other card(s)… And VISA makes gazillions with it when we all just do not use the prepaid cards and have no way of using them, yet they expire all… Any other ideas? Walmart, Sam’s Club, Target, they all have their own gift cards but none of them are for cents, al just $5 and up…
Rebecca says
Yes! Do you have any Aldi grocery stores around you? They allow you to split payment at the register! I think there are quite a few grocery stores who let you split them beyond Aldi. I’m pretty sure Wegman’s allows it, too!
Benjamin says
I loved your article! It works perfectly and the pick punch was icing on the cake. Just ordered one for my son!
Rebecca says
Thanks, Benjamin! I’m so glad you love it!
Jimmy says
Thank you for this article. I never thought to try amazon to consolidate these small amount cards. Worked great!
Rebecca says
I’m so glad it worked well for you, Jimmy! Thanks for taking the time to let me know!
Gary says
No need to buy Amazon gift card for each balance and redeem each one. You can just add remaining balances your Amazon credit balance. Just go to your sccount and find add to your Amazon balance or something like that. So if your Amazon balance is $20, and your remaining balance on your Visa gift card is a dollar fifty, just add the $1.50 to your Amazon balance and then you have $21.50 Amazon balance to use on future purchases.
Rebecca says
Hi Gary- Back in the day when I wrote this, Amazon did not have that feature. 🙂
MO says
I tried doing this with a card that had 11.21 on it. Amazon charged 10 cents to the card making the balance 11.11 then said that I didn’t have enough Money on the card for the 11.21 e gift card.
Rebecca says
That’s new! They haven’t done that to me before!
Katelyn S says
Amazon now requires a $1.00 minimum
Rebecca says
Good to know!
S says
This is absolutely brilliant. I had no reason to throw away these gift cards, as they still are MONEY, after all!! Thanks so much for this tip — few more and I can actually get around $20 from them all 🙂
Thanks!
Mike Trivisonno says
Thank you! I had no idea what to do with these things!
Marc-Andre says
You can add prepaid credit cards dusted left overs onto your paypal account you just add the card then add funds to your wallet with whats left!! Much more places you can use paypal!! Even on amazon xD
Freda says
This worked perfectly! I agree, a dollar is a dollar!
Like so many of you, I sat down at my desk this morning trying to figure out what I could do with all of the gift cards on my desk with small balances. So of course I Googled those exact words “What to do with Gift Cards with small balances?” and found this article.
Note: Amazon, has updated the minimum amount to $1.
Thanks again for your suggestion.
Marc-Andre says
Use paypal! You add funds to your wallet with the prepaid card.
Jackie D Bennett says
I know this is an old thread, and I’m sure this isn’t exactly “revolutionary” -but I spend the remainer my used, low balance Visa gift cards on purchases at the grocery store. I just use the self checkout & select the card payment option when I’m ready to pay for my groceries/items. You simply swipe your Visa/MasterCard gift cards, one at a time until they’ve each been applied to your overll order total; thus bringing a “low, leftover balance” down to a nice, clean $0.00:) Hope this helps for anyone who hasn’t thought of this!
Rebecca says
It may be an old thread, but I’m still here and I love that idea!!
Shannon says
I was going to post this tip. Its great if you have a self check out grocery store nearby. There is a self checkout at the Walmart I go to. Also there is always a employee stationed to assist, just ask.
Julia says
Thank you so much Rebecca. I just redeemed over 10 prepaid visa card and got 32.00 at amazon gift ecard. I purchased some essential oils that I wanted for a long time. I will think of you when I use them. Again thank you. You are a genious.