Finance Wanted.

By Russ D Johnson

The State of Mississippi is home to some of my favorite things- catfish, sweet potatoes, and rootbeer (invented in Biloxi in 1898). Mississippi's Treasury Department has also become home to something that's on top of my list and probably yours as well - money. Mississippi unclaimed money, to be exact. "Nearly 1 in 5 Mississippians have money representing over $38 million that needs to be claimed," stated Mississippi State Treasurer Tate Reeves in a recent press release. This is certainly good news for the numerous families that suffered hurricane losses in recent years, and are now dealing with serious setbacks in their budgets.

When people pass-away or move to a new place, they often forget to leave a will or a forwarding address and this results in lost inheritances and mail. Tax refund checks, financial notices and the like get sent back to sender (the IRS, banks, insurance companies, etc.). According to Treasurer Reeves, "They are required by state law to turn them over to the Treasurer's Office after a dormancy period. After that dormancy period is over, they turn it over to the state. We put a book out every three years and send it out through various media,".

According to a recent report by NBC's Dateline, a number of lucky Mississippians were recently reunited with their lost funds and it was actually a pleasant shock for most of them. A Biloxi, MS resident found out he had $30,000 from an investment his deceased father didn't tell him about. A couple who had lost everything to the recent hurricane received $250,000 from Mississippi unclaimed property. Another woman who was struggling to rebuild homes for her mother and herself received $100,000. Gordon White, was in the middle of building his dream home when Katrina hit and was forced to live in a trailer had $200,000 from bank stock shares his father had kept secret. One of the biggest claims given-out yet was to a Vietnam veteran who was forced to retire from his job as a company supervisor due to post-traumatic stress. Turns-out he was owed almost a million dollars from old company stocks he had forgotten about after retiring from said company.

If you or a relative has lived in Mississippi before, chances are good that a portion of the $38 million Mississippi unclaimed money also belongs to you or someone in your family. Search for unclaimed money in Mississippi as well as other states now. The national unclaimed fund total now exceeds $35 billion and the money is just sitting-around, waiting for the rightful owners to step forward and make a claim. Doing an online search for unclaimed money can be as simple as putting in a person's name and other identifying information in a state unclaimed property database. It becomes tricky however, to do a thorough search in several states- a good idea if you have relatives scattered across the country. The best way is to learn proper and thorough methods on doing effective unclaimed money searches online.

Unclaimed money and property expert Russ Johnson has been assisting Americans in finding their unclaimed money online since 1997. His site, http://www.unclaimedmoney.net, is updated regularly and offers guaranteed official searches for Mississippi unclaimed money and missing money across the country.