What are you doing with the gift cards you received for Christmas?

This one is shorter... I promise!

It occurred to me while eating a meal in a restaurant, thanks to a gift card from a generous relative, that many people are giving gift cards - the ones that look like credit cards - in place of other gifts. I've received several cards myself, to restaurants or stores that I rarely frequent, and they've languished lost in the junk drawer or have taken up space in my wallet. With the cards I did use, there was always a small remainder.

While gift cards are convenient for gifter and giftee, they do have two major drawbacks. First, they're for a round number $50, $25 or $100, and your meal, sweater or shoes may only cost $47.98, $19.99 or $89.98. Do you save the balance for next time, buy something else you may not need or loose the card when the balance is no longer enough to make a purchase?

The second problem arises if you don't use the card at all or if you let the remainder lapse. Most companies only allow you to carry the balance for a few months or a year before they start charging a monthly maintenance fee. Eventually the $2.02, $25.00 or $10.02 goes back to the issuing company.

What if we could donate those unwanted cards or that small balance to our favorite charity? It would be a win, win, win, win - the gifter knows the full dollar value of their gift was appreciated, the giftee gets to make a donation to their favorite charity, the issuing company gets good press for being charitable and the charity gets a few dollars. (If we all donated just a few dollars this way, it would add up...)

If you received a Visa, Mastercard or PayPal gift card, you can donate the balance quite easily - simply log onto your favorite charity's website and click the "donate" button. You might even consider doing this with the unused balance of a travel credit card - those non-re-loadable cards issued by banks instead of travelers checks.

For the hundreds of business-specific gift cards we have a different problem. We need to convince Applebee's (that's where I was when I had this particular brainstorm), Sears, American Eagle Outfitters, eBay - every major and many minor business offers them - to allow the real owners of that small amount of money (you and me) to use it the way we want to.

We want to donate those few dollars to a worthy cause, the charity of our choice.

Of course for me that will be an animal charity - there are plenty to choose from. You may choose another charity, and that's fine by me...