This holiday season some well-meaning friends may have missed the mark on a few of the gift cards they gave you: cards to a store you’d never step a foot in, to a store that’s not in your area, or to a coffee shop when you prefer to get your daily dose of caffeine from a soda.

If you were the recipient of a couple of these duds, here are four ways to use your unwanted gift cards to your advantage:

1. Buy something for someone else. Get creative and find ways to use your card for another purpose. Know someone who is approaching graduation? Give them a head start on their professional wardrobe. Attending a baby shower? Get diapers, toys, or baby bottles.

2. Give them to charity. Donate your gift cards to a worthy cause and get a tax write-off without spending a dime. Chances are a nonprofit will be able to use the cards for their own purposes or get them in the hands of a deserving family.

3. Sell them or trade them online. Get cash for your cards or swap them for gift cards to other retailers on the websites Plastic Jungle and Swapagift.com, which also gives you the option of applying the balance on your gift card toward a bill payment.

4. Give them away as prizes. Turn your unwanted gift cards into door prizes for your New Year’s Eve party or give them away as game prizes the next time you host Poker or Bunko night.

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