Billions in Unclaimed Cash Just Waiting to Be Claimed

There's nothing like found money. Here's how to find some you never knew you lost. Earlier today, Good Morning America aired a neat experiment demonstrating just how easy it is to find out if you've got a legit claim on unclaimed cash—uncashed paychecks, security deposits, safe deposit boxes that have long since been forgotten about, and more. How much unclaimed money is out there? A TON! The estimate is somewhere north of $30 billion. So how does one find out if they're entitled to any funds? The GMA piece sorta glosses over the key website, but here it is: MissingMoney.com . This site links to the websites set up by each state where info about unclaimed money can be found. You have to do a search for each state where you lived, and, if you've changed your name at any point, you should also search using your different names. GMA set up a spot in Times Square and invited random people to hunt for unclaimed money—and in searches for 25 different people, unclaimed money turned up for seven individuals. That's a pretty darn good ratio. And that's good reason for you to give MissingMoney.com a shot. Actually, ifthe ratio was 1 in 1,000, that'd still be reason to do a search. It only takes a few minutes. Actually, a Get Rich Slowly post that I've highlighted before makes it easyto skip by the MissingMoney site entirely. Down toward the bottom of the post, there are links to each state's site for searching unclaimed property and funds. Both the GMA story and the GRS post have links to other websites that'll enable you to hunt down other sources of unclaimed cash—like Treasury Hunt , for example, which lists unclaimed U.S. savings bonds. I've tried all of these sites in the past and come up empty, which I suppose is good and bad: I haven't found any money, but then again, I haven't been letting money sit somewhere unclaimed for years either. Now I know.