A Windfall

by B. Benson

Last October, The Billfold asked a bunch of people what they would do if they got a surprise $20,000 windfall. Most people said they would use the money to pay off their debt, then save and invest some of it, and then use a little bit of the money to travel. My thoughts then were pretty much in line with everyone else’s.

And then last week, I got a windfall. My parents were left some money by a relative, and they gave me $6,000 to use however I wanted.

The first thing I did was max out my Roth IRA for the year before the April 15th deadline ($1,200 to hit the max of $5,500). I then took half of what I had left and put it towards my student loans ($2,400). The rest I kept in my savings account while I looked up the prices for plane tickets for this summer to Greece and Japan and Argentina.

Then, this weekend, while sitting in bed, I looked down at my tattered “alternative down” comforter and realized that what I should be doing is buying all those things I’ve put off buying over the past few years because I just couldn’t bear to see that money fly out of my account. So I went on a little shopping spree and bought:

• A nice down comforter from Overstock.com ($270 — goodbye old, gross comforter!)
• A Le Creuset Dutch Oven ($285 — stews, here we come!)
• A KitchenAid stand mixer ($250 — all of the mixed things, here we come!)
• A conical burr coffee grinder ($129 — all of the coffee, here we come!)

Total: $934 on things I’ve wanted to buy in the last 10 years but didn’t have the money (or didn’t want to part with my money).

Money leftover: $1,466

I’ve decided to donate half of the leftover money to a charity, and will use the rest for a trip this summer.

Where can I go with $733?

B. Benson is an office drone.

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