If you draw a paycheck, you’re due an extra $160 in January and February thanks to the Temporary Payroll Tax Cut Continuation Act of 2011.<\/p>\n
What’re you gonna do with your windfall? Maybe not much. It’s pretty easy to miss $20 more in salary, especially if fixed expenses (groceries, insurance<\/a>, child care, gasoline) keep going up.<\/p>\n Note:<\/strong> This is not a political column. I repeat: This is not a political column. I really don’t care what you think about the payroll tax cut. Please keep all your #$@!# dumb-o-crat policies or #$@!# con-man-servative hatefulness comments until a later date. Like, um, never. Get Rich Slowly is a personal finance site, not a flame-throwing political forum. Thank you for not foaming.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Technically you have two choices: Save it or spend it. I’d like to suggest a third: Save it or spend it intentionally<\/a>.<\/p>\n You could go out to lunch a couple of times each week. You could treat yourself to $20 worth of cupcakes<\/a> or ceramic clowns from the dollar store<\/a>. Or you could convince yourself that each double sawbuck represents an opportunity to improve your life.<\/p>\n Which it does \u2014 if you look at it the right way.<\/p>\n If someone offered you $160 in cash, you’d probably grab it. (And if you didn’t, can I have yours?) But to some people, an \u201cextra\u201d $20 a week seems penny-ante.<\/p>\n Thanks to rampant ATM use<\/a>, $20 bills have become the coin of the realm. I believe this has devalued them in the popular imagining \u2014 and there’s no denying that $20 doesn’t go very far these days.<\/p>\n In particular, it doesn’t go very far if we fail to pay attention to spending<\/a>. We grab a soda and some chips when we go in to pay for gas. We add a magazine and a few packs of gum at the grocery checkout counter. We always get popcorn at the movies<\/a> because, well, we just do, that’s all.<\/p>\n It’s only $3, or $5, or $7. Besides, we deserve it.<\/p>\n That’s how some people get into trouble in the first place: By neglecting to frame expenses in terms of their true and cumulative costs. Dropping a few hundred dollars on a spur-of-the-moment weekend getaway is great fun at the time, but you may regret it if you can’t pay the balance in full.<\/p>\n The money you spent (and continue to spend, in the form of credit card interest) also is cash that can no longer be used in a smarter way, such as retirement or a pay-cash-for-a-car<\/a> fund.<\/p>\n Let me be clear: I am not saying that you can never have any of the things you want. In fact, I am learning \u2014 slowly! \u2014 to spend a little money on myself<\/a>. So if you’re in a position to drop that extra $20 per week on chai tea or sheet music, by all means drop it.<\/p>\n And if not? Make those temporary twenties work damned hard for you \u2014 and incidentally, their job might be to pay for something fun, such as frugal entertainment<\/a>.<\/p>\n How can you put that money to work? Use it for the following:<\/p>\n Shopping, if you must:<\/p>\n For the health of it:<\/p>\n That’s entertainment:<\/p>\n Thinking ahead:<\/p>\n The grasshopper generally has a swell summer: long days at the beach, trips to amusement parks, ice cream for breakfast. Meanwhile, the ant is weeding the garden, clipping coupons and hanging all his laundry<\/a> to dry outside.<\/p>\n Once the temperature drops, the grasshopper is likely to regret his profligacy. The ant, meanwhile, has a storeroom full of pinto beans and tube socks. All the windows have been caulked, too.<\/p>\n Of course, it’s your money and therefore your decision. But try thinking of your $160 in ways like these:<\/p>\n<\/span>True and Cumulative Costs<\/span><\/h2>\n
Pay It Down, or Pay It Forward
\n<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/span>Ant or Grasshopper?<\/span><\/h2>\n