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So. My tax refund has arrived, and it's likely the last one I'll get for a long, long time - one of the very few and entirely tolerable down-sides of doing relief work is being responsible for taking care of all my own income tax.
However, due to circumstances at work this past year, I actually have a decent-sized refund - something I'm entirely not used to. This leaves me with the question, though, of what to do with it. I have always been an incredibly frugal person; it's how I managed to survive growing up borderline white trash, put myself through graduate school, and generally survive in the world until now. Old habits are hard to break, though, and even now that I'm starting to have some flex-room in my budget I still wind up behaving as though I don't have a spare nickel to my name.
Anyway. Refund. Every penny-pinching instinct in my body is telling me to stuff it in my savings account and pretend it doesn't exist, or some similar hands-off, no-spendy technique. Saving is good, spending is bad. The slightly more lenient, less panicky voice tells me that we really do need a second car, even though we're managing to function with just the one right now, and this might make a decent down-payment (frugal voice, of course, insists that this is wasteful and selfish, since having just the one car, while annoying, is not crippling). And a tiny, greedy, selfish voice keeps whispering in my ear that this is *my* money, and there's enough there that no harm would be done if I stole part of it and splurged on a manicure/pedicure and crafting binge. (Car-voice says that this is selfishly robbing my husband of a possible car, and frugal-voice won't even comment on such an evil, bad, wicked, unthrifty plan.)
So. Am I a bad person for wanting to throw away found money? Maybe I should just call it a mental-health tax. And the car, if we could afford it, really would help make our lives infinitely easier. I know it's greedy to want two, but with me driving hither and yon for work almost every day, it's difficult to juggle both of our work schedules. If I still put a little bit away, perhaps I won't feel *quite* so guilty.....
However, due to circumstances at work this past year, I actually have a decent-sized refund - something I'm entirely not used to. This leaves me with the question, though, of what to do with it. I have always been an incredibly frugal person; it's how I managed to survive growing up borderline white trash, put myself through graduate school, and generally survive in the world until now. Old habits are hard to break, though, and even now that I'm starting to have some flex-room in my budget I still wind up behaving as though I don't have a spare nickel to my name.
Anyway. Refund. Every penny-pinching instinct in my body is telling me to stuff it in my savings account and pretend it doesn't exist, or some similar hands-off, no-spendy technique. Saving is good, spending is bad. The slightly more lenient, less panicky voice tells me that we really do need a second car, even though we're managing to function with just the one right now, and this might make a decent down-payment (frugal voice, of course, insists that this is wasteful and selfish, since having just the one car, while annoying, is not crippling). And a tiny, greedy, selfish voice keeps whispering in my ear that this is *my* money, and there's enough there that no harm would be done if I stole part of it and splurged on a manicure/pedicure and crafting binge. (Car-voice says that this is selfishly robbing my husband of a possible car, and frugal-voice won't even comment on such an evil, bad, wicked, unthrifty plan.)
So. Am I a bad person for wanting to throw away found money? Maybe I should just call it a mental-health tax. And the car, if we could afford it, really would help make our lives infinitely easier. I know it's greedy to want two, but with me driving hither and yon for work almost every day, it's difficult to juggle both of our work schedules. If I still put a little bit away, perhaps I won't feel *quite* so guilty.....
