What to do with my income tax refund? With federal and state combined, it's about $6,200. (and before you ask, yes, I have changed my withholding allowances so that I won't be getting such a large refund next year).
Well, Bob, you just started a blog about your personal journey toward debt reduction, didn't you? The answer is simple: pay off your 16.99% CC, and put the rest toward your 12.9% CC.
Well we need a new roof. It isn't leaking - yet. But the shingles are curling, and everytime the wind blows hard we get a new crop of blown-off shingle pieces on our yard. And it's been at least 25 years since the roof was last replaced. So, it is time for a new roof, before we damage the inside of our house.
The estimates should start coming in this week. I hope $6,200 is enough. It's a fairly simple roof - not a lot of peaks and valleys. And the pitch isn't very steep. But the cost of materials is way up - thanks Col. Gadaffi. So, we'll see.
As to the diversion from debt reduction. We're not going on vacation, or buying new clothes or any of a number of other things we've been putting off. We're buying a new roof to protect our investment in our house. Please forgive me.
Income Tax Refund
April 19th, 2011 at 12:50 pm
April 19th, 2011 at 01:10 pm 1303218644
Let us know how it goes.
April 19th, 2011 at 01:18 pm 1303219091
I usually get a large refund every year, I thought I was being reasonable claiming single 2 but I am going to get real and change that.
I would like to sugggest that you post your current debts on the left side of you blog so as you go along and post more entries that people don't have to skim your blog entries to remember what debts you are attacking.
To post your debt stats you go to:
Control Panel, Blog Author Bio section.
Good Luck!
April 19th, 2011 at 08:14 pm 1303244054
April 22nd, 2011 at 04:57 pm 1303491448
Also, in light of crappy, non-existant interest rates these last couple of years, I've been re-thinking the "don't give the gov an interest-free loan" advice. These days there is NO difference between giving the bank an interest-free loan vs giving the gov an interest-free loan. And the large refund gives you the advantage of having a consolidated chunk of money to throw at a big problem. So please don't apologize for the large refund this year ... or with bad interest rates, any year. Interesting times call for interesting solutions.
April 23rd, 2011 at 05:22 pm 1303579371
So we continue on cutting our spending where ever we can to put that extra savings on our cc debt and do the new roof with the refund. It is better than financing a new roof 6 months from now because we are not able to put the cash together like we want.