(Part 1 of 2)

Generally when people think about the state of ID, what do they usually think of? Potatoes of course. Lots and lots of potatoes. But there is also a massive pile of something else that you might say is "no small potatoes" – Idaho unclaimed money. ID's missing money fund has risen to a whopping 40 million dollars and counting and all of this money belongs to citizens wise enough to locate it and claim it.

The majority of people find it difficult to believe that average ID residents have managed to just abandon 40 million dollars, and that citizens across the nation have abandoned nearly $40 billion (yeah, with a "b", billion), but believe it or not, the chances that any given person is owed unclaimed money are better than the odds that they are not due a claim. The primary reason for this is that these abandoned assets come from such a large variety of sources. According to the website of the ID State Tax Commission, the department responsible for handling these assets: "These include stocks, bonds, mutual funds, bank accounts, uncashed payroll checks, utility deposits, traveler's checks, contents from deposit boxes, and more. Most of the assets are ones that people didn't know they had or just forgot about, and sometimes they are worth thousands of dollars."

(to be continued)

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$1.5B in
The

Most State Governments Launch Intense Awareness Campaigns to Inform of
The easiest way to find

Spare change left at airport checkpoints
Unclaimed money, typically consisting of loose coins passengers take out of their pockets, is turned into the TSA financial office.

Unclaimed Stock: Find Lost Shares
This week, I'm answering questions from readers, because there's an unclaimed money question that keeps coming up again and again. That tells me there's a need, so here goes. Here are two samples of the questions I've gotten: