1. I’ve always been the type to file my tax return as soon as humanly possible because in the history of me filing taxes, I have always, ALWAYS gotten a return.
In years past, Matt and I did various things with our returns—
The year we were married, I convinced Matt to use his rather sizeable tax return to completely pay off his car (which was probably the smartest thing ever, and something that made me fall in love with him all over again…I swoon over financially-savvy decisions).
The year after we were married, we used our return to pay for our cruise to Alaska, which I also don’t regret (although it wasn’t quite as financially savvy as our decision the year before).
In other years, we’ve used the return to buy a new mattress, pay off small personal loans borrowed from our parents, and fund the vacation we used to always take around spring break (before Raven arrived).
This is the first year, I believe, where the entirety of our refund has gone into savings.
And, while it’s not nearly as exciting or immediately gratifying as some of our other tax-refund purchases, it IS pretty awesome to know that we’ll meet our goal of saving $10,000 in our emergency fund WELL before the end of the year, which means we can start throwing all extra money into our down payment account.
If that’s not exciting, I don’t know what is.
2. We are officially reaching the epic two-year-old tantrum stage, complete with screaming and crying and flailing fists against the floor. Depending on the situation, I either ignore it completely, put Raven in time-out, or use distraction to end the tantrum, but I’m sure hoping that this stage won’t last too long since it about sends my stress levels through the roof.
Luckily, she’s only thrown tantrums in the comfort of our own home, so I haven’t had to deal with the added stress of having random bystanders judging my parenting abilities. If this stage is going to continue, let’s all hope that that trend continues of her at least deciding to melt down in a more private setting…
3. After every kickboxing class, I am sore in places I didn’t know even know could be sore, and I marvel every week that I’m not seeing more results from my dedication to my gym attendance. But then, all I have to do is log my calories for one day, sheepishly adding in every last Hershey kiss consumed, and the reason for my lack of noticeable results becomes immediately apparent.
Hey, if kickboxing is what it takes for me to continue my chocolate addiction, I guess that’s a fair trade.
4. I have definitely done some backsliding when it comes to my social media resolution for this year (where my goal was to severely limit my time on certain social media platforms to certain days and for certain time limits). While I’m still on far less than I used to be, I have definitely been regularly breaking the schedule I set up for myself.
This is partly due to the fact that I’ve started listing more things from our storage shed auctions on Facebook rather than just on KSL Classifieds (which makes me feel like I NEED to check Facebook more, especially since a query on one of our bigger items went unanswered for about 5 days when I was being more strict about my social media checking). It’s also partially because since the snow has come back (goodbye fake spring—you were glorious while you lasted!), all the stir-crazy winter feelings are making me go nuts being cooped up inside while also making me disinclined to do anything productive (a toxic combination, that’s for sure).
I think I’m going to try and start fresh next week with my original parameters, and hope that the Facebook sales thing doesn’t come back to bite me in the behind.
5. I’d like to take this chance to point out that the only clothing I’ve bought for myself in the last 6 months has been a cheap pair of jeans from Old Navy back in October. Ever since I realized how much I was spending on clothing, I’ve been kind of doing an unofficial clothing ban because I really don’t need any more clothes for the foreseeable future.
This is actually a pretty Big Deal for me because I’ve always loved shopping for clothes, and it was always one of the main things I’d spend any extra income on in the history of me making money.
While I’m proud of myself for showing such restraint lately, I AM getting rather sick of my clothes, which means that it’s probably time to change out my capsule again (since I’ve basically stuck more or less to the concept of doing a modified capsule wardrobe for every season rather than having all my clothes in my closet all year long).
Considering that I haven’t worn some of them in almost a year, it will feel just like shopping for new threads.
At least, I’m hoping that’s my reaction. Otherwise I’ll have to hide my debit card and avoid all shopping websites like the plague for about a week…
What’s been going on in your world? Any fun plans for your tax return?
