Saturday, February 14, 2015

A good money dilemma; tax refund time

Once a spend-aholic, always a spend-aholic? Maybe?

At present I most certainly feel as though this frugal woman must be a recovering spend-aholic. We've gotten back the bulk of our tax refund. It's not enormous like some folks I know but it certainly isn't small either. Having that much money in the bank all at once feels a bit like winning a lottery jack-pot even if it is just a small sum of our money we paid into the government that's now been returned to us... basically as if we let them hold onto it for us for the year.

I have a swirling whirling storm of thoughts colliding within my brain that's almost debilitating as I try and decide where this money is going to go. Best answer: savings then debt. Period. Right... But...

Oh my gosh, the front stairs need repairing, we've been meaning for ages to put block windows in the basement, the garage is falling over (no, our house is not crumbling around us but there are repairs needed). The car definitely needs a tune up and yet that's the last thing I want to spend the money on. We're hoping to do a nice birthday party for the upcoming 3 year old. Then there's the fact that I have one pair of blue jeans that now have holes in the knees (yep, my only pair of pants except for my work khakis and then the maternity corduroys that I do actually put on if we're going somewhere nicer... it's embarrassing but no one knows except me). This sad state of affairs pretty well describes my entire wardrobe at present so I could spend some money on that for sure. Luckily my husband has NOT chimed in with all the ways he wants to spend the return. This is abnormal. I am truly waiting for him to dump a big "need" on me but he swears he hasn't one in his mind so in truth I'm super proud of him. I'd actually forgotten about needing to replace the basement windows and that's been his only suggestion so far. (That's truly not a "whoa is me" thing on the clothing situation. I despise clothes shopping so much even if I were rolling in dough)

We've agreed to put $1500 in savings. I'm scared to though. It sounds like superstitious nonsense but every single time I fully fund the emergency savings about a day later something breaks that requires all of the savings. It's not that things are breaking here and there all over the place all of the time. It seems it's only when we put a good chunk of money into savings. Ugh! Is there a way to trick the savings troll? Like maybe if I just stash cash in my underwear drawer instead of putting it into the "savings" account...

After putting money into savings we're left with enough to do one nice thing. Needless to say this is a good dilemma but it's kind of driving me crazy none the less. The biggest reason for the "dilemma" is that we're REALLY good, almost professionally good at nickle and dime-ing away our tax refund every year. It's so easy to do. I'm already doing it in my head. I just need to get this money divvy-ed up on paper and then we need to agree on the divvying and then we need to get to it. I wish I was better at decision making. I am not!

Average daily spending for 2015: $18.13

18 comments:

  1. Put some into savings, pay off some outstanding debt(highest interest rate), then take $30 and go to a thrift store and buy yourself some clothes.
    Then don't touch the savings unless it's an emergency(something life altering).
    And do the 3 yr olds bday on the cheap.....at his age, he won't care and it won't matter.

    And stop worrying about money gremlins/demons. The only money gremlin that's for real is the spouse. lolz

    That's an order. ;-)

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    1. You are absolutely right Sluggy; a true voice of wisdom and reason! I'm just trying to talk myself into doing the right thing, ugh!

      P.S. I like your comment about the gremlin :) hehe

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  2. You just have to love sluggy because her advice is really good. I think you can retrain your brain but always have bad habits lurking.

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    1. Ah ha, "bad habits lurking," that about sums it up exactly!
      And agreed :)

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  3. This is when wants and needs blur. Love the idea of $30 for clothes but at a thrift store. It sounds like you do need some clothes, but this advice keeps the wants at bay. I'm typing this wearing $5 Salvation Army store bought two years ago and still look hardly worn. I'd factor in after savings the home repair that would actually save money first like replacing inefficient windows.

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    1. Totally blurring! You all are actually REALLY encouraging me to thrift store shop but I am not good at it. I wish I could take some of you with me. I'm horrible at thrift store shopping and its not that I haven't done it. I have, but I have a hard time finding stuff and when it comes to pants every time I've bought a pair at the thrift shop I end up not wearing them because I compromise too easily, probably due to my hatred of clothing shopping, and the fit is never good. I think I'll recruit my sister into being my partner in the thrift store shopping spree "fun."

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  4. That is the down side to home-ownership.....having to pay for all the repairs yourself! We are looking at replacing skylights, replacing french doors, replacing ALL flooring, hall bathroom toilet....well, I could go on for days!!!

    The bad part for us is I'm not even sure we are getting a refund - hubby "pre" did our taxes and it looks like his "raise" put us into a new tax bracket & we are going to OWE about $1000 - WHAT THE HECK????? It just gets better & better!!!

    On the plus side, we have only eaten out 2 times so far this month and 1 time was only bringing home McDonald's, so we are still within the $50 budget I set.....it is only the 14th but, so far so good!!!

    For little Abe's birthday - I would forget a party and do something really fun like a trip to the zoo, something like that - he will remember that for a long time!!!

    Sue :)

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    1. I know what you mean about the tax bracket. When I started filing our taxes our refund was enormous. I entered the pretty measly earnings that I made for the year and it bumped us into a different tax bracket that reduced our tax refund by A LOT! It was sad :(

      Okay, you are doing SOOOOOOOOO great with your eating out goal; I mean unbelievably great! I am really, really proud of you guys! Keep me updated, please.

      And my little guy still remembers his birthday party from last year. He has an unbelievable memory. He's REALLY looking forward to his birthday party this year but the hubby and I are having a very difficult time coming to an agreement on it and I am going to shoot him the idea tonight or tomorrow that we might just want to do a fabulous "party" with just the three of us. So I'm thinking along the same lines as you are.

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  5. I would put the money to debt and do go buy yourself some clothes. You can get quite a bit at a thrift store for clothes.

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    1. I like that you're all thinking along the same lines. It is actually making this decision making process a bit simpler and I'm highly considering giving the thrift store another go (I hate thrift store shopping for pants).

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  6. I have a hard time shopping for myself at Thrift Stores. Especially for pants. It's hard to find a good fit. I love shopping at Thrift Stores for my kids and my husband always finds great clothes for himself.

    Now that I have kids, its a pain to go clothes shopping. I never have the time to really try stuff on. So if I need clothes, I usually go to Target's website and shop the clearance section. With the red card I don't have to pay shipping and even if I didn't have the card, I usually hit the amount to get free shipping anyways. And the selection is usually pretty good. Then I can try everything on at home and If they don't fit, I return them to the store which is only about 5 minutes from my house.

    It's more expensive than the Thrift Stores but I'm able to take my time and make sure everything fits good in the comfort of my own home. I still usually don't spend more than $10 - $15 on each clothing item. Definitely cheaper than shopping at regular price.

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    1. Somebody gets me! I have bought pants at thrift stores before and I end up never wearing them. Maybe there are just some body types that can't thrift store shop for pants, hehe

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  7. As for the birthday party. You can do a nice party pretty inexpensively. At 3, most kids are easy to please. They just want to have fun.

    If you could have the party outdoors, a park is a great option. We did that for a couple of the girl's birthdays. At the park by our house, we can rent a pavilion for $40 but there are also picnic tables scattered around that can be used for free. I've seen plenty of people decorate a picnic table for a party. Just set up the food and drinks. Bring some extra chairs or tell people to bring their own or a blanket for the kids to sit on. It could be a picnic style party. Just take some balls, bubbles etc. The kids will have a great time running around and playing. Then just keep food and drinks simple.

    If the party has to be indoors and you can have it at home, theme the party after his favorite character,toy or book. We had a Blue's clues party one year at my moms house. I was lucky and found a whole bunch of blues clues stickers, favors and a pinata on clearance at the party store. I made a blue cake and blue punch.

    We've done a couple Barney parties and a Barbie party. Instead of buying all the expensive character themed plates and napkins, I just buy the cheap plain kind in the colors to match the theme. Like for barney everything was purple and green. You can do many decorations cheaply and even create games or activities yourself.

    For Barney, I printed out color pictures of Barney, Baby Bop and BJ, cut them out and taped them to the plain white plastic table cloths. I also printed out Barney coloring pages and had a coloring table with crayons and stickers. There are lots of ideas online for decorations and activities that can be done very inexpensively.

    And really at 3, kids just want to run around, play, have fun and eat cake.

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    1. I've really been wanting to do a "go dog go" party at our house. I'm crafty so I'd just make most of the decor myself but my husband and I aren't seeing eye to eye. This party planning thing is becoming almost as difficult as our wedding planning was (we ended up eloping). Right now I'm holding out hope that he'll give up on a party this year and the three of us can just do a fabulous day together; go out to eat, go to a kids fun place, watch a movie at home. Just pack it full of our little family together fun time.

      Yeah, my son was born at the beginning of March in Michigan... the poor kid will never have an outodoor party.

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  8. I actually wear 2 pairs of my maternity pants regularly. I think they are cute and with a long shirt nobody knows.
    I love clothes shopping and now is the time as everything is on clearance. I got Annabelle a skirt for 50 cents. Check out old navy's clearance.

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    1. It's nice to hear I'm not alone on the maternity pants! The one pair I wear is probably the cutest pair of pants I've ever owned and they fit great. I don't feel proud wearing them however. I think I will do a clearance hunt for pants before I hit up the thrift stores. Sometimes you can totally spend less on clearance that on used stuff at the thrift store anyhow. good call!

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  9. You could always spilt your tax return into thirds. A third for the past (debt), a third for the present (clothes, house repairs, mini getaway etc) and the final third for the future (savings).

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    1. That's a very tempting and well thought out idea. Hmm... This decision is still proving to be a supremely difficult one.

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