I received the following email from a reader, Mitch, and thought it would be a nice reminder to pass on:

I was plunging through the depths of my desk and file cabinet today, looking for some misplaced work documents. I took this as a chance to winnow things down a bit. For instance, I had note pads in filed in there that only had three pages used; so I pulled those pages, stapled them together, and then put the pad where I could use it again later. In all, I pulled eight pads out of my files! I even found some extra Scotch tape and Post-It notes in the back of a drawer, so I’m all stocked up on office supplies for awhile.

At the bottom of a drawer (that had not seen the light of day for about 3-4 years), I found two old gift cards. One for Barnes & Noble and one for Office Depot. I tossed them into the garbage pile and moved on to continue my search/cleaning.

As I was about to throw everything away, I decided, “What the heck, I’ll check those cards to see if there’s a few bucks left on them.” So, I flipped ‘em over and called the number on the back, fully expecting them to be bone-dry, and got a very pleasant surprise: The Barnes & Noble card has $20 USD on it! Yee-Haw!  A quick call to Office Depot revealed that card had expired, but what the heck: I’ve got $20 USD that I didn’t know I had.

Not a bad pay-off for a 1-minute phone call.

I don’t know how many times a few minutes of my time has saved me heartache, time, or money.  This seemed like a good reminder to pass on.  Calling about a card balance, calling to compare auto insurance premiums, or even calling your cable company to ask for a discount seems to give solid returns on time investments.

Have you ever saved or made money by just taking a little time to do something?  Can you think of any other examples that any of us could use?