Buying My Way Out of January

Have you ever had one of those great, great days when what feels like free money just appears out of nowhere? This happened to me recently. I’ll spare you the details, but in a nutshell: I had a nice little check for $500 show up in the mail last week. Basically I was only getting a refund related to something from last summer, so it wasn’t exactly free. However, I had absorbed the original loss of this $500 into my budget long ago, which made this check showing up when it did feel very much like an out of nowhere surprise.

So the question became: What to do with it? Pay bills? Well, like I said, I’d already absorbed the loss into my budgeting, so this wasn’t showing up at a time I really needed it for bills. So what about savings? Another reasonable idea since I’m a big believer in being prepared for the rainy days. But because I already kind of live my life that way...well, I don’t exactly NEED to save that money right now. Typically that’s what I would do, and as a result it’s the rare occasion when I would take a windfall like this and just enjoy it. (And for the record -- believe me when I say I have a full appreciation for how blessedly lucky I am to be in this position.)

So the question changed from what to do with this bonus and instead became what would be a good way to enjoy it? First off, I feel absolutely justified in the idea of taking money like this and possibly spending it on something completely unnecessary; after all, my sister just narrowly avoided a near-death experience less than a month ago, and something like that happening makes you pause and evaluate things. I don’t really have anything on what I’d call a bucket list, and I like to think of myself as being relatively level-headed and introspective enough to be able to sidestep anything as self-indulgent as a midlife crisis. So where does that leave me? Would it be to spend little wad of cash on a thing, or use it for an experience? And are those really the only two options I have?

The only thing I’ve kind of decided on is I’d like to find something that can keep my head occupied for as much of the next three weeks as possible. I’m thinking this check showed up when it did because I’m meant to use it as a way to distract myself from how awful January is and how much I hate it. But how? I still have the job I have to show up at and do every day. It’s still cold and windy and snowy and stupid outside. So what would be the best distraction possible?

I don’t know how helpful it would be to ask for suggestions. I’d expect most ideas would be reflections of what the people offering ideas might do in my place, or they might go in such a broad direction I wouldn’t know where to begin. But I sure could use a distraction. I’m not exactly soliciting ideas here, but if somebody was absolutely sure they had the perfect one, I could be convinced to listen....