dont know what to spend refund on now

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-28-2007
dont know what to spend refund on now
12
Wed, 01-21-2009 - 11:57pm

at first it was a no brainer, we would just spend it all on our debt. but now its like but we need this and we need to do this. now we might even have to spend a little on bills bc DF missed a couple of days at work and then ofcourse we want to put SOMETHING into savings. i just dont know the best way to divide this all up

 


laurenaugust.gif picture by wowen<

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iVillage Member
Registered: 04-28-2007
Thu, 01-22-2009 - 2:18pm
im assuming i should put the things in collections as "getting bills current" but what area should car matainence go into? its definitely a priority and if i put it into the 25% category i dont think we could get everything we need since we need new tires, inspections, tags, and DFs car needs to be fixed all together. The 25% would cover all that but then we might not have enough left over to get DD what she needs

 


laurenaugust.gif picture by wowen<

Avatar for mahopac
iVillage Member
Registered: 07-24-1997
Thu, 01-22-2009 - 2:55pm

I think it is always a good idea to have some money set aside for things that are hard to budget for but need to be done, such as repairing cars and oil burners and such. Otherwise you end up charging those things and just digging the hole deeper.

The last two car repairs I had came to almost $800 each and were fairly routine things. Our oil burner and water softener both broke down this past week and we had repair calls on both which added up to over $400. Not fixing things often creates bigger problems, so not making these repairs was not an option. If you don't have this kind of money set aside, that would be my suggestion.

Then if there's anything left over, take a small bit of it for fun money and use the rest to pay off debt. It's discouraging to never have any fun. :)

Kelly

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