In need of cash? Check Savings Bonds

— -- Times are tough, and a lot of us are short on cash. Selling unwanted holiday gifts on eBay might raise a few bucks, although you probably won't attract a lot of bids for that beef-scented body spray you got from your manly cousin. You could shake out the sofa cushions, but that probably won't produce much of a profit, unless you had Warren Buffett at your last Tupperware party.

But there are other potential sources of cash that are probably more lucrative than the sofa. Some examples:

•Savings Bonds that are no longer earning interest. The Bureau of the Public Debt, a division of Treasury, says there are more than 40 million matured Series E Savings Bonds languishing in sock drawers and safe-deposit boxes.

The bonds were purchased from 1941 through 1978 and have an estimated total value of $16 billion, Treasury says. Some of these unredeemed bonds have probably been destroyed, and others may belong to people who have died.

In other cases, investors may be holding on to matured bonds because they don't want to pay taxes on the interest, says Stephen Meyerhardt, spokesman for the Bureau of the Public Debt. But, Meyerhardt notes, "Even after paying the tax, you're still going to be ahead of the game."

Most financial institutions will cash in Savings Bonds, Meyerhardt says. If you're the beneficiary and the original owner is deceased, you'll need to show the financial institution a death certificate, he says.

Treasury offers a Savings Bond calculator at www.treasurydirect.gov that will help you figure out how much your bonds are worth. Another tool on the website, Treasury Hunt, will help you track down bonds you've misplaced. However, this tool is limited to bonds issued in 1974 or later.

To track down older Savings Bonds, send a written request to the Bureau of the Public Debt, P.O. Box 7012, Parkersburg, W.Va., 26106-7012. Include as much information about the missing bond as possible, such as the name (or names) of the owner, the owner's address and the date the bond was issued. If you're not sure, provide a range of dates.

•Unclaimed funds. Billions of dollars in stocks, uncashed stock dividends, forgotten bank accounts and refunds are sitting in state treasuries. You can find out if any of this property belongs to you at the website operated by the National Association of Unclaimed Property Administrators, www.missingmoney.com.

Data for the site are updated monthly, and searches are free. Be wary, though, of look-alike sites that claim to offer free searches. This year, Pennsylvania's attorney general sued a Massachusetts website, charging that the "free search" advertised by the company was deceptive, the Associated Press said. Prosecutors said the website provided only vague information free, then charged $24.95 for details.

Prosecutors also said that when they entered "Batman," "Spider-Man" and "Wile E. Coyote" into the site, they were told that the cartoon characters were entitled to multiple caches of unclaimed funds.

•High-yielding savings accounts. The Federal Reserve lowered short-term interest rates to 0% to 0.25% last week, making a dismal environment for savers even more wretched.

But that doesn't mean you have to settle for puny returns. Many banks are still hungry for deposits and are willing to pay a higher interest rate to attract them, says Greg McBride, senior analyst for Bankrate.com.

Some banks are paying 3.5% or more on their savings accounts. You can find the top high-yielding savings accounts at www.bankrate.com.

A few months ago, some banks were offering up to 5% on savings accounts. You won't find those kinds of deals now, McBride says. But if you measure your returns in terms of buying power, you're still better off, McBride says, because the inflation rate has fallen faster than interest rates. "You're better earning 3.5% when inflation is at 1% than you were earning 4.5% when inflation was at 5.5%," he says.

While consumers have gotten savvier about interest rates, there's still a lot of money sitting in low-yielding bank and checking accounts that could be put to better use, McBride says. Consider: If you have $5,000 in a bank account that's earning 0.5%, you'll earn a grand total of $25 in a year. Switch to an account that pays 3.5%, and you'll earn $175.

And this is one of the rare instances where you can boost your returns without increasing your risk. As long as your bank is insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., you can sock away up to $250,000, risk-free.

Sandra Block covers personal finance for USA TODAY. Her Your Money column appears Tuesdays. Click here for an index of Your Money columns. E-mail her at: sblock@usatoday.com.