How To Turn Your Old Gift Cards Into FREE Amazon Products

As spring is getting closer, I have been feeling more and more motivated to get some spring cleaning done. All of my kids and I have cleaned out our rooms and desks and have found SO many old gift cards. Before throwing them away, I checked to see how much was left on each one. Every gift card had a small balance left on it ($.5.96, $3.02, $6.41) and I just felt awful throwing it away.

So, knowing my frugal self, I started researching ways to use up these small balances on my gift cards! I stumbled upon a blog post by Bright Bacon that explained that you can use your old gift cards to get FREE things on Amazon! That’s right, you read that correctly.

Let me explain how this works!

So, first thing you need to do is round up all of those gift cards. The key is that it needs to be a visa or mastercard giftcard OR prepaid debit card. Find any and all of these cards in your home and then check the balance on them! Know how much each card has left on it. It doesn’t matter if it was $.40 or $4.00, everything is accepted!

Then, you head on over to Amazon to start the process. Those of you who are familiar with Amazon know that you cannot split your purchases, which means, you cannot pay for part of your purchase with one card and the other part with another. So, you cannot use your gift cards directly in the checkout process. BUT, there is a way to get around it!

Amazon will let you put in your gift cards/pre paid debit cards as a credit card. All you have to do from there is buy a virtual gift card on Amazon with your gift card balance. So, if your visa gift card has a balance of $3.02, buy a virtual Amazon gift card for $3.02 and make the payment method the visa gift card! When you buy it, make yourself the recipient and the virtual gift card will get emailed directly to you. You can then throw away the card and feel guilt free because you will be getting EVERY PENNY out of that card.

Since you put yourself as the recipient, the virtual gift card code will go right to your email and you will have the spare change in your amazon account. From there it is easy! When you check out, you may use your gift card to pay for partial OR all of your purchase if you have enough. It is super simple and SO easy! There is no sense it throwing away your old gift cards when you can use the extra change to get free products!

How many gift cards do you have lying around in your home? Why not turn them into FREE products!

I know that it may seem like a lot of work for $3 but, a little can go a long way. I am going to do an example using the gift cards I have laying around my house to show you just how quickly these odd amounts add up. I have 5 gift cards from this last Christmas that my kids and I didn’t finish up so let’s see what we can get out of them!

• Gift Card #1: $3.02
• Gift Card #2: $4.56
• Gift Card #3: $2.96
• Gift Card #4: $6.31
• Gift Card #5: $3.73

          Total: $20.58

What would you buy with the extra $20.58? Comment Below!

I know what I am going to buy! My kids have been telling me for such a long time to get a portable charger and I finally can get it, FOR FREE!

Anker PowerCore 10400 Portable Charger

Original Price: $49.99

Sale Price:        $19.99

Price after Virtual Gift Cards: $0.00 (COMPLETELY FREE!)

And because I have Amazon Prime, I will get free shipping and have the charger delivered to my home in 2 days!

Because I am always trying to stay connected with my kids, my readers, and stay on top of everything with FF, I need to always have a charged phone and laptop! This is SUPER difficult at times when I don’t have access to an outlet! This charger will charge my phone up to 4 TIMES and my laptop once! I could never justify spending $50, but hey, now its free!

I cannot wait to see what all of you get for free using your leftover gift cards!

Comment below and let us know what you end up finding. I love reading all the ways you are saving! I mean that is the point of this blog, right?!

Happy saving!