comments
Your Take: Plans for Your Tax Refund?
Email
 Print
|
Last year, the average tax refund was a cool three thousand bucks. While we don’t know what the average tax refund will be for the 2010 tax year, chances are it’ll be pretty sizable as a result of all the different stimulus and tax credits of the last year. While I’ve long talked about adjusting your tax withholding (and reasons why you wouldn’t want to adjust), most people don’t do it. Some people are concerned about penalties, others prefer this “forced savings,” and others just don’t want to bother.
We learned yesterday that most people were planning on paying down debt or putting it towards savings, while others were going to buy a big ticket item or go on a vacation. The question we have for you today is – what do you plan to do with it? Save for a rainy day? Spend it on a vacation or new television? Put it towards a downpayment or against existing debt?
{ 39 comments, please add your thoughts now! }Related Posts
 By Jim |
 Stumble It! Bookmark reddit.comTags: Income Tax, IRS Mar 04, 2011 | Read more in Your Take |
Like this article? Get all the latest articles sent to your email for free every day. Enter your email address and click "Subscribe." Your email will only be used for this daily subscription and you can unsubscribe anytime.
It’s pretty small this year, but I’m going to use it for an extra car payment.
That sounds like a great idea.
That sounds like a great idea
It’s pretty small this year, but I’m going to use it for an extra car payment.
Won’t be big this year, but part will go to a good cause, a small part will be “fun money” (probably a new spring coat or pair of shoes I need) and most of it will go towards savings.
Whatever it is, it will go toward paying down debt
Tax refund? What’s that?
This seems like a duplicate post???
LOL, answered this question yesterday in the other post, oops. I plan on taking the small refund I get and directing it to my Roth IRA. Pretty boring but the money will have a long time to grow before I need it.
I was going to get a head start on my Roth IRA for next year and beef up my emergency funding with a bit. There are a few expenses coming up this year that the refund will help me get a jump start on.
Considering we’re getting swept into the AMT this year, can we get a post asking the government what they’re planning to do with our extra $3,000 we’re going to pay them in a month?
Mine’s going to medical bills unfortunately. I’d much rather save it or use it for something else.
We bought a shed. A really *really* big Amish-built shed. If you click through to my blog, I posted pics this morning of the delivery, which was quite amazing. Big Shed. Anyway, that was where a good portion of our refund went. The remainder goes in savings.
My husband and I will contribute 2/3 of it to a Roth IRA and use the rest to pay for dental work. We are law and grad students, so this year’s hefty refund was a wonderful surprise!
It’s not much, because I only had a very part-time job for half of last year, but it’s already in my savings account.
We used part of our refund for a new freezer and a garage door opener, some went to pay down debt, and a good chunk went to savings.
Don’t yet know if I’m getting one….I’m waaaay late getting the info together. I return from a trip on March 15 and will have to dive into it then.
At this point I’m simply hoping I won’t OWE anything. But if I get a refund I’m going to put it into savings, since I will have had to take some out in order to fund my Roth IRA fully for 2010.
Here’s hoping.
We always put ours in savings to pay our property taxes at the end of the year (about $3,000) + . What is left, we can save or we can treat ourselves, but the obvious is first , be responsible. IT has never failed us yet. If there comes a time, when i have to pay ptaxes out of our paychecks, then it will be according to how many paychecks for the calendar year, and divide by that to set aside to pay the taxes. Always be responsible first, and then come the play things, at least we still have a roof over our heads and our debts are being paid down and nearly paid off. Whew
Buy more stocks.
taking it, small as it is, and a few hundred more and directing it to IRA contribution for last year now that I just got hired on as salary at work and can now relax a bit with a steady full-time income in the future rather than carefully watch my part-time take and hold liquid funds for just in case
I haven’t gotten a tax refund in a while. (I didn’t even need to adjust my withholdings to accomplish it; I guess interest income and stock capital gains / dividends automatically do it).
Funding my Roth IRA for the year.
mine’s going right into my retirement savings!
mostly investment and savings, with a few minor purchases here and there.
Being wife and I are retired and like to travel in 5th wheel trailer and pickup, most likely use the refund, if any, for gas/fuel expenses. May get to costly to travel, then extra monies will go into stock market that pays dividens.
I’m very proud to say our financial plan is solidly on track enough that we can blow half of this refund on fun stuff guilt-free. The rest goes to savings in the hope we’ll be able to make it a tradition.
As of 2/28/2011 the average refund for this tax year was $3,129 (from Cnn.com/money) the top 2 things that people were doing with their refunds were vacations and down payments on cars. I wish they would save or pay down debt.
Yes, but we need other people to be good consumers to support the economy. We all can’t save save save.
But you better believe I am saving mine!
They will one day. People must learn on their own. Once they realize that the vacation is over and they are back at home worrying about the house hold cost, after a few years, they will look back and with they still had that money. One day they will pay down the principal on loans. If you never lived hand to mouth, you don’t know how hard it is to save just enough money to not lose anything if a tragedy strikes.