Sunday, February 24, 2008

The tax refund cometh

For once I filed my tax return in a timely fashion and now I'm reaping the reward. I already have my refund! It was direct-deposited into my ING savings account on Friday. Now the question is what do I do with it? Well I already used it all up (or rather, it's partially used up and partially scheduled to be used up on Monday).

My tax refund was bigger than I expected -- about $1100 total. I put $700 in my Scottrade account, $100 in my emergency fund, and $300 in the Sharebuilder account I set up for my nieces and nephew. In one fell swoop I took care of presents for their birthdays and Christmas! Of course I still have to get them tangible presents, but they can be pretty cheap and thus easy to pick out. For instance, my nephew's birthday is next week and I bought him a jigsaw puzzle of the cover of a Beatles album.

The shocking thing is that the account now has almost $700 in it (including the $50 opening bonus). Granted, that's to be divided between the three of them, but it's a not insignificant chunk of change! Seeing that large figure really validated this idea to me. I could have bought $600 worth of stuff and today there would be hardly anything to show for it. Certainly most of the presents I've bought for them in the past have been put away or forgotten.

2 comments:

SavingDiva said...

My tax return went to car repairs :(

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