My tax refund was delayed because of someone else having filed before me, using my number. The IRS said it would take six to twelve weeks to get everything cleared up. I mentioned this to my kids in passing, that I probably wouldn’t see my money until the beginning of June, earliest (and to save you the math, yes, I did e-file at ten minutes to midnight on the 15th, pease don’t bother to chide me for that, I’ve already heard it from EVERYONE!).
So the other day, just because I was bored, I went to the Where’s My Refund? site again, even though the last two times it told me to go away and come back in a week or three. And Lo! and Behold! It said my refund was due to be deposited in my account the next day! I checked my bank, and it was already in! I was giddy! Giddy, I tell you! But I told No One. I wanted to bask in the joy of having a few dollars for a day or two.
Three hours later, my daughter calls. She asks, "when is your refund supposed to come? Even though I’d already told her June. I cautiously ask, “Why?” She has a bill that needs to be paid that day, or service will be disconnected and it will cost double to have it restored. She gets paid Wednesday. Her last paycheck was miniscule because she has no vacation pay or sick pay with this job and she was out ill with bronchitis for four days…plus she had to pay to see the doctor, and for meds. The amount she needs is less than what I had received. I lend it to her. She will pay me back Wednesday afternoon.
But my happy little bubble is burst.
How do our children always know when we have a few extra dollars? Or, for that matter, the car? Or a long-forgotten expense? I got an unexpected check the other day for $80…the next day, I got a bill from the dentist for $85 that the insurance decided not to cover. I got my state refund a few weeks back, and got a bill for a ticket I thought I’d paid two years ago…for almost the exact amount of the refund. Found a twenty dollar bill in the jacket pocket…son’s bike tire needs replaced…to the tune of $20. Found a five tucked in between the pages of my calendar/planner the other day…they were collecting money for a gift at work…five should do it.
kittenblue - It seems everytime my bank balance gets above an amount known to the gods alone, something happens. Vet bills or car repairs, normally. I remember one tax refund season I needed to do shots for all the animals, my horse had to go to the opthamologist(!) and my dog blew out her ACL and needed orthopedic surgery on her knee. $1500 in vet bills in one month.
But you ARE winning, as you have the money when you need it… and not when it’s too late to do any good!
My step-daughter has, through a combination of stupidity and fluffiness, managed to put my partner and I into a situation where we are maxxed out on all our credit cards AND having to take out a bank loan to keep her with a roof over her head.
(Too long and boring to go into… but she is now aware of my feelings after she showed me her £70 haircut as I was dropping off some food that she had no money to buy!)
We had a large credit card balance that we were having a lot of trouble whittling away (I had gone back to work part time after Moon Unit was born, and it was a struggle to keep the bills caught up).
Typo Knig got a huge bonus, that paid off that credit card bill. DEBT-FREE AT LAST!
A week later, his car was totalled. The insurance payoff made a pretty good down payment on a replacement… but the loan amount was almost exactly equal to the credit card balance we’d just paid off. :smack:
Oh well… coulda been worse, we could have gotten slammed by the car loan and NOT had the bonus to pay off the credit card. We’d have had to significantly downgrade the car (and the replacement wasn’t exactly a high-end car, just a new Honda Civic).
Is there any kind of small sacrifice I can make to the fates to forestall this, just for a month? Because I’d really like to get ahead, just for one month, and I have worked overtime for the last two weeks AND worked a second joblet, AND I should be paid for another upcoming joblet soon. I really, really, really need to get ahead of things soon!
One time a few years ago I was out of town at a work related function. They held a raffle. Big prize was $1,000 and I won it. YEA!
Got home and my wife was pacing the floor, the refrigerator had died while I was gone. For just $995 we got a new one. I’ve never known whether to be pissed because my $1000 fun money was grabbed by the fridge, or happy that I had an extra grand to pay for it.
Gee, I’d say you came out ahead there. The interest rate on that car loan has to be lower than a credit card rate, right? I mean, I understand your story, but I think you did win, overall, on that one.
Oh, we were definitely better off with a car loan than with the credit card balance, we’d just have been happier with having the cc paid off and no car loan. Oh well.
Oh jeeze, you had to blab. Now your car’s going to start making funny noises.
Speaking of blabbing: we’re “ahead” at the moment, due to a combination of refinancing (and therefore skipping 1 mortgage payment) and tax refund. However at the exact same time, we had to pay for my daughter’s orthodontia (non-optional, the problems were more than cosmetic). So it looks like we’ve got a chunk of cash… but the orthodontia is on a credit card with a teaser rate, so that cash is ALL spoken for.
They get it from the Pet Channel. Oh sure, pets act like they don’t know how to read, but clearly they can because they check your bank account online when you’re not home. When they see you’ve saved up enough dough to buy a new Mac or make a down payment on a car or something, they send a broadcast to all the other pets to remind them that someone has to go swallow a pair of shoelaces requiring emergency abdominal surgery and vet bill that come to the exact amount you’ve stashed away.
Clever adult children seem to be able to hack the pet network and intercept these broadcasts for their own nefarious uses.