These are crazy times. The government keeps giving me money! Don’t get me wrong – I am thankful to receive it. But it’s a little weird that large sums of money are regularly being deposited into my checking account.
Last week, we received $1,250 from our child tax credit. Technically, we were supposed to get $1,300, but I am sure it will all get sorted out at tax time. We will continue receiving these monthly payments until the end of the year. With the money rolling in, we have to decide how to spend this unexpected windfall. I have been debating 3 different options.
The first option is to give it to our children. Who am I kidding? In all 3 scenarios, we are giving it to the kids. But with this option, we would deposit the money into our kids’ college savings accounts. This is the most practical (and boring) way to use the tax credit.
The second option is to put the money into our vacation fund. I really want to take our children to visit a few national parks out west. The plane tickets alone will cost thousands of dollars. Depositing the child tax credit payments into the vacation fund would give us more than enough cash for this trip.
The third option is to put the money towards an above ground pool. I admit, this option is probably a bad idea. But I want to give my children a fun childhood, and having a pool would be pretty awesome. Unfortunately, the tax credit wouldn’t cover the entire cost of the pool and deck. Plus, this would be an ongoing expense with the chemicals, filters, electricity, etc.
John and I have discussed all the options, but we haven’t made any final decisions. For now, I transferred the tax credit money to our savings account for safe keeping. Decisions, Decisions.