We're such a rich country, we have a staggering $21-billion in unspent gift cards. More than half of U.S. adults say they've allowed a gift card to expire.
Bankrate.com's Ted Rossman says you may be sitting on a small shopping spree.
"On average, they have about $167 lying around."
Rossman says there are two main reasons.
"People forget about them; that's what happened with me, I got a couple of gift cards for Christmas and I honestly just forgot about them but I'm glad I found them. The other thing is people sometimes get gift cards for stores they don't really like."
Rossman says the good news is most gift cards don't expire and the ones that do are good for five years.
"Gift cards are not allowed to expire for at least five years and most have no expiration date whatsoever. The ones that do tend to have expiration dates are those general purpose cards, the ones with the Visa, MasterCard or American Express logo."
Rossman says if you don't want to spend the balance you can re-gift the card or sell it online at a number of sites.