Listen, I've had refunds before. I've had massive ones before as well. But there's really nothing like getting a huge sum of money dumped in your lap and being told it is now yours. It makes you feel giddy.
It also makes you do stupid things sometimes.
I've done stupid things with it. That is to say, I've almost always blown it one way or another on stupid shit. Mostly crap. The last two years a good chunk of it was used to basically pay down my credit card debt in significant fashion, but never in full and it's really just another way of saying "I blew it on crap." I certainly couldn't tell you what it was that I bought that ballooned that credit card debt in the first place.
(Well except the one time when it helped to pay for an overnight trip to Ottawa, but that's neither here nor there)
Anyway, I'm mostly over that phase of my life in which I carry credit card debt now because that means most of the money will go to more sensible places. For instance, my student loan debt.
Which I kind of, totally did with this tax refund. I swear...
Well...
Okay, so I'll admit it. Only about a quarter of the money I got in my enormous refund ended up going to my student loan debt. (or to pay back the loan I took out in February to put towards my student loan debt. Either way, big picture, it went towards my student loans). The other three quarters I redirected it elsewhere. With about half of that leftover cash being put into my travel fund for a planned trip to Florida with my sister.
Yes I'm aware and I understand that that's not how responsible people are supposed to handle a small windfall when you're in debt!!! And yes, I know, it means for a third straight year, I'm spending a good chunk of my refund dollars, money that should be going to paying down my student loan as it is my student loans that gave me most of that giant refund, on "crap."
But I'm not a responsible person. I'm a person with fifty-thousand dreams in the works as far as my money goes here. And given that this may be my last real guaranteed giant sized refund (I'm almost out of education credits in which I can burn), I want my money to do as much for me as I can make it do.
And plus, it's my money. Well... kind of, given that I still owe the government that amount and then some. So really it's their money that I'm borrowing against my loans in order to do this.
This is a chance for me and my sister to gain a valuable experience together while we're both still young and fairly early in our careers and has been something we've both been thinking about since graduating, granted, jobs and job searching got in the way since then. And it's our opportunity to celebrate life.
And plus, any money I don't end up using is likely going to be sent back to my savings somehow.
As for the rest of the money after vacations and student loans? Three-fifths went into boosting my emergency fund and the rest went into my TFSA. So retirement investing and a life cushion and a means to further advance my goals in those specific areas of my life. That money put me halfway to the $3000 preliminary goal that I'm gunning for this year as well as gets some money working for me. (rather than the other way around)
All in all, no regrets.
Plus, despite putting a chunk of the money I got back as a planned expense and therefore gone into the ether, I still set aside and saved enough of the money from the return that it made a really really sizable impact on my net worth.
Don't believe me? You'll see at the end of the month...
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