I received my income tax refund last week. I’ll tell you the first thing I did when it was deposited in my bank account:

OH YES I DID. And it felt good.

Actually, it was sort of sad. $1,000 made a dent in my federal student loan, but just barely. It went from just under $9,000 to just under $8,000 but it’s still freakin’ gigantic so it didn’t feel quite as monumental as I thought it would. That’s too bad. I just keep trying to tell myself, “that’s $1000 that NOT collecting interest, that’s $1000 you DON’T have to pay later” and I am cheered a bit.

Truthfully, every payment does feel like it’s lightening a great big weight on my back a little bit at a time.

BUT I’m not done. I still have $600 worth of payments ($500 to the federal student loan and $100 to the provincial student loan) scheduled when I get paid on Thursday. This does mean that yes, March 2012 is the month I put $1,600 towards my student loans.

This means the payment due March 31, 2012 for my student loans is $208.38 but actual payments I’ve made by March 31, 2012 will add up to $4,200.

Can I get a badge or something? I paid 20x the minimum! That’s 1/5th of the original loan balance GONE in the first six months!

The rest of my income tax refund was split between savings and a somewhat hefty unexpected expense. Originally I wanted to put more of the money into savings, specifically for a trip this summer, but then I would have had to dip into my emergency fund for the unexpected expense. I decided it was just easier to pay for it with this extra income rather than to withdraw money from my EF and later try to rebuild it. I’m not very good with establishing a solid emergency fund in the first place, I hardly want to take a few steps back now.

Also, I am always grateful for memegenerator.net, which brightens my life nearly every day.