At the risk of sounding like one of those spam emails you used to get all the time, there could be thousands or even millions of pounds stashed away in a bank somewhere, with you as their heir, and you might not even know it. Over in the UK, the Bank of England estimates that the value they're holding in unclaimed assets - I.e. cash - from estates where people have died with no obvious heir, is in excess of £15bn. In the United States, you would expect that figure to be significantly higher.
This is a good time to look through your family tree. If someone died somewhere at the end of a chain; uncles, aunties, great aunties, cousins, second cousins; with no children of their own, their estate may have been stuck and going nowhere because nobody appeared to claim the money. It might not be all that likely, but it's worth your time to look.