Get a $128 coat for $44 with discounted gift cards

ATLANTA - You got a Black Friday bargain and a Cyber Monday steal, but there is no reason you should stop trying to get deals.  Let's talk about how to use a gift card to get a deal.  

Take this statistic from CEB, a business advisory group. About a billion dollars worth of gift cards go unused each year. One billion dollars just sitting in drawers, buried in wallets, and lost in purses. 

For a while now folks have been selling gift cards they don't want. Say you got a $100 gift card you know you'll never use.  You can likely get about $75 for it.

Now here's how that helps you. You can buy that $100 gift card at a discount that is generally 16 to 17 percent cheaper than the full value.  So you're buying it for $83.50.

Here's a real world way to save even more money. Let's say your daughter wants a beautiful coat, but it's $128. That's steep. But let's chip away at it because you have two things here: a discounted gift card and you've landed on a 40 percent off sale. Not unusual to see that kind of savings time of year.

With the discounted gift card you already saved $16.50.  And, you can take advantage of that sale, so subtract another $51.20.  That coat is now $60.30. And that's a lot more doable.

But keep pushing it. You could get another gift card and knock another $16 off of that.

Here is  helpful link to sort out which sites are rated good, safe places:  Wallet Hub Rating

Often used sites:

• Raise
• Gift Card Granny
• Card Cash
• eBay Deals