What would you do if you were on your couch, beer and clicker in hands and your kid told you there was lost money under your bed? Chances are, you'd drop everything and go find out how much there was, right? It might just be a few dollars, but it would surely perk-up your day. Now, imagine how high your spirits will go if you found-out you had unclaimed property with the government worth hundreds, maybe even thousands.

It's actually been happening to people across the country. In a recent report on NBC's KNSD- San Diego news network, Deborah Brueggeman, a resident of North Park, San Diego, recieved $20,000 sitting in a California unclaimed property account. The unclaimed money came from stocks bought by an uncle that had passed-away. "I was really happy about it. It felt really good," an ecstatic Brueggeman said.

It's not just in California- U.S. residents everywhere are owed some amount of unclaimed money and property and they they're not even aware of it. Imagine- over $23 million in lost funds have been returned to the joyful hands of Alabama residents this year alone. Read more on AL unclaimed property. New York State has one of the biggest unclaimedproperty accounts- around $8 billion worth! Dale Hardie, a homeless veteran, had just been evicted from a Lake Ronkonkoma trailer park until Gerry Bringmann of Pathchogue did him a favor. The Good Samaritanfound $11,000 in his name using his Blackberry in between commutes. "There are literally billions of dollars just sitting out there waiting to be claimed," says Bringmann.

The estimated value of national unclaimed property is almost $40 billion. The uniform unclaimed property act requires lost assets such as forgotten bank accounts and uncashed checks to be turned-over to the Department of Treasury Unclaimed Property Division of each state after a specified 'dormancy period' which is usually 3-5 years. These lost assets are put into an unclaimed property fund until the rightful owners come to claim them.

It might be a good idea to take a raincheck on that Miller Lite and the A-Team rerun and do an unclaimed property search now.
It can be as easy as getting on the net and search through your state's unclaimed property database just by entering your name and SSS number. You may just wind-up with extra cash in your pockets to start-out '08 right.