Easy money is a dream of so many of us but comes true for so few. It is a well-established notion that money does not come easy and you always have to work very hard to get it. True but not always! There are so many legitimate ways you can make money. All it requires is some thorough searching and it can all be yours.
There is always a chance that you have money owed to you which has slipped through your fingers due to lack of knowledge of it, carelessness in handling your financial affairs or simply not knowing where to look. The following are some ways you can find some legit sources of money with little or no effort:
Savings Bonds
Savings bonds take years to mature and that is why they can often easily be forgotten, misplaced, or lost. Payment of more than 25,000 such bonds is returned to the Treasury Department every year undelivered to its recipient. All such bonds can be traced on the Bureau of Public Debt’s Treasury Hunt page. If you think you may have a savings bond to your name, just visit this page and fill in the form. Records are available for all bonds issued after 1974. The same form can be used for a pre-1974 savings bond as well.
Unclaimed Money from the Government
Although the Government does not have a central website at the moment where unclaimed money can be found, there are nonetheless several Government websites where you can find money owed to you. It involves a little snooping around and some hard work but it might pay off if you have money owed to you by the Government in back wages, bank failures or credit union closures, pension money owed to you, life insurance funds, undelivered tax refunds, or FHA-insured mortgage refunds.
The National Association of Unclaimed Property Administrators or NAUPA is one place where you can do a search for any property or money owed to you in any state you have ever lived. Money owed to you in pensions, back wages, life insurances and many other places can be given a thorough search on the Government’s website. It provides details of all the places you can look for unclaimed money from the Government along with official sources of information regarding the same. It is actually a compilation of tools which you can utilize to search for money that belongs to you.
On this website, it is clearly mentioned though that a lot of scams are involved when it comes to unclaimed money by people. People claiming to be Government officials are contacting citizens regarding returning their unclaimed money for a fee. The Government does not have any such scheme and Government agencies will not contact you regarding your unclaimed money or property.
U.S. nationals may also have money owed to them from foreign Governments. This too can be ascertained on the Government website mentioned earlier.
Retirement Income
Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation or PBGC is a Government agency protecting the retirement incomes of American workers. If you are one of those people who has been frequently switching jobs but not rolling over your retirement savings and following it up properly, you may have money in accounts you have forgotten about.
The above website can help find retirement funds from companies you have been working with, in the past. If you cannot find anything there, you can also try finding it on the National Registry of Unclaimed Retirement Benefits.
Cash-back Apps
Walmart and a few other stores offer money through PayPal, Venmo, or gift cards if the user is using their cash-back app. Just download the app and scan your receipt every time you shop at these stores and that will do the trick. The app determines bargains and if there is one, it will give the money back to you in the form of a gift card in case of Walmart or just pay you the difference.
Class Action Settlements
There are many manufacturers in the market who get sued over faulty products or complaints regarding their product. If a manufacturer you’ve bought from has been sued, you can receive money from a class action lawsuit once you register your claim. Just fill out an online form and you’ll have a claim registered in the settlement. The website topclassactions.com makes sure consumer-owed dollars reach the rightful recipients.
Check out the website and see if anything listed there is something you’ve been using or still use. This way, you can easily get the money you spent on something faulty. People are often part of a lawsuit proceeds without knowing it, so they miss out on their share of the award. Billions of dollars of class-action lawsuit funds go unclaimed.
Safe-Deposit Box Items
A deceased relative may have left money or other assets in your name without your knowledge. Often people die without a will. The state unclaimed property office is the place where you can look for anything that was left in your name and find money or assets you never knew existed for you.
Similarly, you may be a recipient or beneficiary of a relative’s life insurance benefit but they died before mentioning it to you or mentioning your name on it, you can still claim it with a little bit of research and a visit to the unclaimed property office of the state.
It’s Worth a Try!
All these ways of finding money may or may not end up in a huge sum and definitely might not make you rich overnight unless you were named an heir to a billionaire cousin’s property, chances of which are often slim. Nonetheless, you can find it simply by a few clicks online. Might as well make some money while you’re whiling away online.
Any money found the easy way is good money. The joy of finding some spare change in the pocket of your old pants or an old unused bag is only known to people who have come across such a rare but gleeful occasion in their lives. This money belongs to you and is definitely worth a try to look for.