so. sleepy.

[dragonlady7]

I just filed my taxes online. Z was going to do them for me-- I had already collected all our paperwork from around the house, and had done both our returns in pencil, but left them for him to check over because I am actually retarded and could wager actual money that I had utterly forgotten something essential.
But then there was a crisis at Z's work, and so he has just spent about six hours sitting on his bed doing work work. He did his own taxes, and yes, I had failed to notice something like a thousand dollars he's entitled to. So that was good.
He sent me to taxfreedom.com and I did my taxes there, and managed to find about $200 more than I'd thought I'd get, so that was nice.

I'm going to take my tax refund and turn it right around to pay off my smaller student loan. It's about the same amount.

I've saved up some money over the several months we've had two incomes now, and I was thinking, oh, I should get a CD, or start a savings account, or buy a car, or get an IRA, and then I realized that any smart financial professional would probably tell me that I'd make more money, in the end, if I just took my savings and plopped them into the gaping maw of my larger student loan. Because, well, duh, debt is expensive, and while I am so smug about how little I spend on myself, there is still a giant steaming pile of debt that is roughly equivalent to my annual salary, just sitting there. So, duh. Not much point in financial planning or, you know, saving for retirement, or what-have-you. I am not exaggerating, either. It's a big student loan.

But that really feels like flushing money down the toilet. Z thinks I should buy myself a present, since I haven't bought myself so much as a pair of shoes in the last six months despite working really hard (I did buy myself a pair of boots as a reward for Canadian Thanksgiving, but that was kind of a while ago now). Last year, while we were still struggling out from under being broke, Z bought himself a scooter with his tax refund. So I think maybe I do deserve a present. But I really don't know what. And now I've started worrying about the scary sucking sound emanating from that giant student loan.

Comments

[kkatowll.livejournal.com]

I second the fear of the scary sucking sound.

I fear it greatly.

feed the loan while you have the chance.

[dragonlady7.livejournal.com]

Nugh, the sucking.

It just bothers me because the way I live my life I don't have debt, and I was getting all smug about how good I am now with all this money I'm earning, and then I look over at my student loan for the degree I'm not using, and I think, that's about the dumbest waste of $20,000 I can think of at the moment, but of course, one can't just not get edjamacated.

[hathy-col.livejournal.com]

If it makes you feel any better, I just think "whee, money!" when I get my installments of student loan and I totally don't consider that I have to pay them off. Luckily, I'm not at the point where I consider my overdraft to also not be debt, but I totally forget that the £3,000-odd I get every year has to be paid back. It's at that juncture my smug "lalala, four year course, I get me an M.A with no extra fees SCOTLAND FOR THE WIN" logic stops working, because rather than being about £9,000 in debt, I'll be £12,000 in debt, and that's supposed to be the start of my exciting Life Outside University in which I'm meant to somehow a. get further training if I go for the teacher route, ergo more debt b. get hitched, which I'm told is pricey these days and is panicking me a lot and c. find somewhere to live and somehow eat whilst doing all of this.

Maybe, with your tax return, get something small for youself, like a CD, and chip a little bit into the scary loan o' doom so that it isn't such a big scary loan o' doom?

(And hey, financial planning is indeed a good idea. My financial planning is "Hey, a lottery rollover! Why, it's impossible for me not to win it!")